Republican Vivek Ramaswamy and his allies have waged a sustained ad barrage against Democrat Amy Acton in Ohio’s governor’s race, hammering her as a left-winger in a state that has trended Republican and backed President Trump by double digits in the 2024 election.
Still, the race is tight to succeed Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican barred by state term limits from running again. Polls show, at best, Mr. Ramaswamy is up by a slim 2 percentage points.
Ms. Acton is campaigning as a moderate Democrat who embraces some of the hottest Republican positions, including voter photo ID. Mr. Ramaswamy, who burst onto the political scene with an insurgent 2024 presidential run, is linking her to leftists.
One of the TV ads features a Republican activist accusing Ms. Acton, the former state health director, of supporting COVID-19 nursing home lockdowns that left her mother without family around when she died.
Another spot says she is “inspiring violence against law enforcement” and endangering Ohio by echoing the “radical left’s lies” about police.
V-PAC: Victors, Not Victims, the super PAC backing Mr. Ramaswamy, is airing a separate 30-second ad attacking her medical judgment, personal life and immigration stance. “Amy Acton said illegal immigrants had a right to be here and praised socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani,” the narrator says.
The messaging makes sense in a state that has turned red in recent elections. Ohio has not elected a Democratic governor since 2006.
This year, the governor’s race is unfolding alongside a competitive U.S. Senate special election between appointed Republican Sen. Jon Husted and former Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown, who has been zeroing in on his opponent’s past support for data centers.
The governor’s race is also playing out in a difficult election cycle for Republicans.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll this week showed U.S. public approval of the war with Iran falling to its lowest level since the conflict’s early days, and Mr. Trump’s popularity remains at a record low.
“Bluntly speaking, Ramaswamy’s problem is Trump’s approval rating in a midterm election,” said Justin Buchler, associate professor of political science at Case Western Reserve University.
Mr. Ramaswamy has shattered fundraising records and leaned into that financial advantage. Through this week, his campaign has spent $25.5 million, and V-PAC has added $29.7 million.
Ms. Acton’s campaign, by contrast, started airing its first ad in early August and has spent $1.9 million plus $975,000 in digital advertising, according to AdImpact.
She is also getting help from the Democratic Governors Association.
Despite that lopsided fundraising advantage, the Cook Political Report rates the race a “toss-up.”
“It’s an inescapable law of politics: Money can only propel a campaign so far when its candidate’s flaws act as an anchor,” the Cook Political Report said.
Mr. Ramaswamy earned strong admirers and detractors during his bid for president. Brimming with confidence, he presented himself as an outsider with the executive experience needed to take Mr. Trump’s Make America Great Again movement into the future, vowing to dismantle the federal bureaucracy.
Mr. Ramaswamy is also running an ad in which his wife, Apoorva, vouches for his roots and character. She says he was shaped by Cincinnati’s public schools and driven by the opportunities Ohio gave him.
“No one knows Vivek like I do,” she says in the ad, adding that Mr. Ramaswamy is motivated by a belief that “the system’s rigged against the people we care about.”
Jessica Taylor of the Cook Political Report said ads featuring family members rather than the candidate reveal what the campaign thinks it lacks.
“It tells me that it’s a candidate that needs to improve his likability ratings,” she said.
On policy, Mr. Ramaswamy is vowing to “be the most conservative governor this state has ever seen in our history.” He says he wants to reduce property taxes, eliminate waste, fraud and abuse, and phase out the state’s income tax. He also supports a moratorium on data centers to ensure future projects lead to lower utility costs and property taxes.
He is drawing a contrast with his opponent by warning that Ms. Acton is running to “be the first socialist governor we have ever seen” and arguing that if she wins, it would mean fewer good jobs, higher taxes and more expensive electricity and healthcare.
Ms. Acton, meanwhile, introduced herself to voters in her first campaign ad as a hardscrabble success story, going from living in a tent in Youngstown at 12 to graduating from medical school and leading the Ohio Department of Health alongside Mr. DeWine.
She is pledging to work across the aisle to take on the corruption she blames for the affordability challenges facing voters statewide.
She called for a pause on data centers before Mr. Ramaswamy did and cited the need for new projects to reduce electricity costs, adding that labor unions should do the construction.
She vowed to cut taxes for working-class residents and derided Mr. Ramaswamy’s vow to eliminate the income tax as a “reckless” state budget buster. She has warned that her opponent is working for special interests and “elite” billionaires.
Distancing herself from her party’s liberal wing, Ms. Acton supports Medicaid work requirements and Ohio’s ban on transgender athletes in women’s sports. She supports a ballot measure proposed by Republican lawmakers to enshrine the state’s voter photo ID requirement in the state constitution.
Those positions have drawn criticism from some Democrats, even as others say they are shrewd politics in a red-leaning state.
Ms. Acton has begun sharpening her own contrast with Mr. Ramaswamy. In a recent ad, she casts him as wealthy and disconnected from the struggles of working-class Ohioans.
“If you’re a billionaire, Ohio looks picture perfect, but I see it on the ground. And down here, Ohioans are getting buried by a system that’s rigged against them. The cost of gas, healthcare, utilities — there’s no more breathing room,” she says in the ad. “It’s time for a change in Ohio.”
The Ramaswamy and Acton campaigns did not respond to requests for comment.
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