Yost defeated his Democratic opponent
Steve Dettelbach, who previously served as the
United States attorney for the
Northern District of Ohio, in the
2018 Ohio Attorney General election. In the
2022 election, Yost was re-elected to his position over Democratic candidate
Jeffrey Crossman, a member of the
Ohio House from
Parma.
Abortion ban Following the ''
Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization decision that overturned Roe v. Wade'', Yost filed a successful motion to dissolve the injunction on Ohio's six-week abortion ban. On June 24, 2022, Yost tweeted that "The Heartbeat Bill is now the law." He released a video statement on YouTube the same day in which he said, "This decision returns abortion policy to the place it has always belonged: to the elected policies branches of the governments." Yost's son and daughter-in-law publicly criticized his actions in messages on Facebook on June 24 and 25, the former saying, "[T]he lack of pro choice is blatantly against what this country says it is on its banners and documents. The land of the free doesn't seem so free right now." On June 30, 2022, shortly after the ban became effective,
a 10-year-old rape victim who was "six weeks and three days" pregnant traveled from the
Columbus area to
Indianapolis, Indiana, to get an abortion to avoid carrying her rapist's child. The incident was widely reported, beginning with an article in the
Indianapolis Star newspaper on July 1, and was mentioned by President
Joe Biden on July 8 in comments at the White House. On July 11, Yost disputed the report, saying that neither his office or the state crime lab had any information on the matter, and that his staff had heard "not a whisper" about it; in an interview on July 12, Yost said it was "more likely that this is a fabrication". That day, the report was confirmed by the Columbus Division of Police and a rape suspect was arrested. On July 14, Yost's office shared a backgrounder with media and on Twitter which listed specific exceptions contained in Ohio's "Heartbeat Law", and suggested, as had Yost in interviews on July 11, that the 10-year-old girl would have been able to obtain a legal abortion under those exceptions. The Ohio Legislative Commission said that nothing in the language of the law explicitly includes the age of the person seeking an abortion as a qualification for exception, and that it was unclear whether the girl would have qualified for a legal abortion. The following week, Yost rejected calls from the chairman of the
Ohio Democratic Party and others for his resignation.
Attempt to invalidate 2020 presidential election results After
Joe Biden won the
2020 presidential election, Yost filed a "
friend-of-the-court" brief in support of the
Trump campaign's attempt to invalidate ballots cast in
Pennsylvania. However, in December 2020, Yost opposed a lawsuit filed by
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton which sought to subvert the presidential election results and prevent Biden from being certified as the winner.
Death Penalty Yost supports the
Death Penalty, In 2024 Yost supported moves to add nitrogen gas as a new method of execution aside from lethal injection.
2023 East Palestine train derailment In mid-March 2023, about five weeks after the
train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, Yost announced a 58-count civil damages lawsuit against
Norfolk Southern for its "glaring negligence" and prioritizing profits over communities' safety.
Social media antitrust investigation In September 2019, Yost was one out of nine
state attorneys general that launched an
antitrust investigation into Facebook and Google, to investigate whether or not they were stifling competition in their respective fields.
Voting laws Yost was sued by a coalition of civil rights groups, including the
A. Philip Randolph Institute, the state
NAACP chapter, and the
Ohio Organizing Collaborative, in February 2024 after his second rejection of a petition for a proposed constitutional amendment, entitled the Ohio Voters Bill of Rights, that would appear on the ballot in the
2024 elections. The amendment would introduce the automatic
registration of voters, discard recent additions to
voter identification requirements, and increase
ballot drop boxes. After rejecting the first petition in December 2023, Yost's office rejected it for a second time the following month, finding that the amendment's title was "highly misleading and misrepresentative" of its content.
Refusal to permit Joe Biden on the 2024 ballot In 2024, Yost refused to grant provisional approval for placing Joe Biden as the Democratic presidential nominee on Ohio ballots for the 2024 presidential election. Ohio is one of few states in the United States that has a ballot certification deadline prior to the Democratic National Convention. In 2020, both the Republican and Democratic national conventions were after the ballot certification deadline, but lawmakers provided provisional approval for the candidates to be on the ballot.
Pro-Palestinian campus protests response ==2026 Ohio gubernatorial campaign==