FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
September 16, 2026
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The New Republic: “Things are looking up for Democrat Amy Acton”
“The economic desperation in Ohio is real and long-standing, and [Dr. Amy Acton’s] empathetic approach is tapping into people’s desperation to be heard.”
COLUMBUS, OH– Yesterday, The New Republic covered Ohio’s governor race, emphasizing how Dr. Amy Acton’s “squarely in Ohio” background, her focus on lowering costs and taking on the cost of corruption have resonated with voters. While Dr. Acton resonates with Ohioans, the piece highlights how Ramaswamy “sometimes sounds almost contemptuous” of Ohioans.
The New Republic reporting spotlights how out-of-touch and “stiff” Vivek Ramaswamy “could hardly offer a greater contrast” to Dr. Acton, as billionaire Ramaswamy travels the world on a private jet, while she has “crisscrossed the state in her Ohio- and union-made Jeep.”
READ: Is This What It Takes to Win Ohio?
- Amy Acton comes from struggle. For someone running to be Ohio’s first Democratic governor in 15 years, her hardscrabble background may be unusual, but it’s not unheard of for residents of a state still trying to recover from the ravages of deindustrialization.
- Acton has focused her campaign on that corruption and on the dire conditions of Ohio’s economy and public infrastructure—and the fact that Republicans have been running the state as it has fallen apart. Promising to “take on the corruption that’s raising our costs” and “give power back to the people,” her platform centers on affordability: She’s proposed a tax cut for working families, and lowering energy and medical costs. As her campaign website states, restoring public education is a top priority.
- Acton’s background is squarely in Ohio. She paid her own way through Youngstown State, went to an Ohio med school, and taught public health at Ohio State. She is also a relative political novice: Her experience in public office begins and ends with her 16-month stint as the director of Ohio’s Department of Health in 2019 and 2020. Perhaps because of this, she is disarmingly unguarded for a public figure, with an approachable manner and a knack for establishing quick connections with strangers.
- Her opponent, the stiff, ruthlessly ambitious former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, could hardly offer a greater contrast. An alum of Harvard and Yale, Ramaswamy is recognized primarily for his achievements outside the state. He is a Cincinnati-born hedge-fund billionaire who also founded a pharmaceutical startup that netted millions by exploiting the buzz around an Alzheimer’s drug that ultimately failed clinical trials.
- “Ramaswamy is particularly inept and he’s particularly terrible,” said Nan Whaley, who ran as the state’s Democratic gubernatorial nominee four years ago.
- Ramaswamy may be the perfect foil for the personable Acton: As she’s crisscrossed the state in her Ohio- and union-made Jeep, she’s taken the opportunity to remind her audiences that Ramaswamy travels via private jet. Comparatively, in a state where 12.7 percent of residents live in poverty, her own backstory of hardship may resonate more. Mix in many Ohioans’ parasocial relationship with her since her wildly public-facing role at the beginning of the pandemic, and she has a real shot at breaking Democrats’ long drought in the state.
- Acton aims to build a coalition around the basic policies she often estimates “95 percent of Ohioans talk about … that no one would disagree on.” Because her past exposure to the public was limited to Covid response and prevention, Acton has the advantage of being a bit of a blank slate: likable, empathetic, and not a “typical politician.”
- …Acton’s campaign, meanwhile, has pounced on [Vivek Ramaswamy’s] various missteps: In 2024, Ramaswamy called Medicare and Medicaid a mistake, “particularly Medicaid.” (The latter helps cover health care for about a quarter of the state’s population.) That same year, Ramaswamy moved his financial services company from Columbus to Texas. In a March Columbus Dispatch column, Ramaswamy suggested consolidating public universities to “right-size” Ohio’s education system—a position received poorly in a state with a lot of pride in its public universities.
- Indeed, Ramaswamy sometimes sounds almost contemptuous of his would-be constituents. In July, he got booed offstage at a Young Americans for Liberty National Convention at Xavier University in his hometown, after claiming the real divide in America is not based on party, but between people who want to win and people who want to whine. As boos and jeers intensified, Ramaswamy hit back that, no matter what happens, “people in my generation have already made it. We’re gonna be fine. It’s gonna be your generation … that pays the price.” The room exploded in cursing and calls to “get the fuck outta here.”
- Meanwhile, Acton has held a slim lead in most of the summer’s polls, even as Ramaswamy’s spending blitz increased. At the end of July, Steve Bannon commented, “Vivek is a terrible candidate to have at the top of the ticket…”
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