You wouldn't know it from the vicious, misleading, andrelentlessly airedattack ads, including a particularly sinister one involving Dr. Amy Acton's mother, but Acton and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy have at least a few things in common.
Both Acton,the Democratic gubernatorial candidate, andRamaswamy,
the Republican nominee, are accomplished Ohio natives running on their own version of the American dream.Acton is the scrappy kid from Youngstown who overcame poverty and childhood sexual abuse to earn an undergrad degree from Youngstown State University,a medical degreefrom Northeastern Ohio University College of Medicine and a master's degree in public health from Ohio State University.
Ramaswamy is theCincinnati-born, Evendale-raisedson of immigrants,
whose father was a General Electric engineer and patent attorney and whose mother was a geriatric psychiatrist, who earned billions in biotech after graduating from Jesuit-run St. Xavier High School and earning degrees from Harvard University and Yale Law School.
Ohio has only elected white Christian men as governor, and either Acton or Ramaswamy would make history if elected.
Acton would be the first woman and the first Jewish person elected to the role. Ramaswamy, of Indian descent, would be the state's first Hindu governor and its first governor of color.
Concerningly, neither has served in elected office before running for governor, meaning we have no in-office track records to critique. But we do have their plans, backgrounds and behaviors to evaluate.
Neither is perfect. But one candidate, Acton, is superior.
Why Amy Acton should be Ohio's next governor
Acton is focused on what matters to the people of Ohio. As a Democrat who served in the administration of Republican Gov. Mike DeWine, she has bipartisan credibility, something our reddish-purple state desperately needs.
Acton says she will work on the "90-some percent of things" Ohioans she's met around the state the past two and a half years are begging to get done because there is no breathing room for small businesses, families and individuals.
"We are exhausted of being pitted against one another, the hate and the chaos and the vitriol. People are longing for public servants again. Quite frankly, I don't think they care what party you are, but they want to know that you're fighting for them," she told our boards. "We need action. We need a statehouse to partner with us to get the work done."
Acton says she will push for better child care and pre-K education, create what she says would be the nation's largest integrated parks system, oppose fracking in state parks, expand workforce development and invest in affordable housing and solutions for renters and first-time homebuyers. She wants to expand the homestead exemption and scale back property taxes for elderly homeowners and those facing spikes.
We all like that she'll seek a bipartisan school funding plan to fend off the universal school choice efforts funded by Musk.
"We need to get absolute transparency and accountability around the out-of-control voucher situation we have in our state," she said during a joint meeting of the USA TODAY Ohio Network editorial boards.
More than 3 million Ohioans, including pregnant women, older adults and 1.2 million children, rely on Medicaid. Acton said she'll support rural and urban hospitals on the brink and protect Medicaid.
Ramaswamy, in a 2024 interview with the New York Times' Ezra Klein.called the creation of Medicare and Medicaid mistakes.
Acton demonstrated during the COVID pandemic, through her advice to DeWine, that she would work to keep Ohioans safe and stand up for what may be terribly hard but is right.
Despite her opponent's efforts to rewrite history, the work Acton did as health director under DeWine's commendable leadership saved lives, as did the Trump administration's work to get vaccines into Americans' arms.
"We actually reopened earlier and got back to life sooner in Ohio because we took swift and decisive action," Acton told our board of the work government did with segments of the private sector.
Acton said she will follow in DeWine's footsteps in picking the best and brightest for her administration despite party affiliation.
"We need to get back to doing that good, hard arguing, fighting about the nuances of policy because that's how you get the best answer," she said.
This race has been revolting and hypocritical
Much of Ohio's national election coverage this cycle has focused on Republican Sen. Jon Husted's attempts to fend off former Sen. Sherrod Brown, a Democrat, in an expensive race that may determine if Democrats can flip control of the U.S. Senate and gain more power to check the Trump administration.
But a New York Times analysis rightly labeled the Ramaswamy-Acton matchup as one of the ugliestin this midterm election cycle.
Race, gender and religion are no reason to elect a governor. And they are certainly no reason not to. Still, gender, race and religion have played a role in the election, through attacks against Acton from Ramaswamy and his supporters, and against Ramaswamy from his own party.
There has been clear misogyny against Acton.
The $90 million attack ad campaign by a super PAC working on Ramaswamy's behalf attempts to paint Acton as a deranged woman who cried in the office during the COVID pandemic - a heartbreaking and uncertain time.
The ads and smear campaign shame her for seeking therapy to deal with the trauma of child sexual assault and attempt to portray an argument with her husband as evidence of drug and alcohol abuse.
This all while some Republicans continue to support Congressman Max Miller, campaigning in Northeast Ohio despiteallegations that hephysically abusedhis 2-year-old daughter and ex-wife, the granddaughter and daughter of Sen. Bernie Moreno.
Most revolting and unsettling is a new“October surprise” ad created by Ramaswamy's campaign and posted on social media.
In it, Acton’s estranged mother calls her claims of childhood poverty and sex abuse lies.
Acton’s younger brother and court documents backed her claims.
“It’s not surprising that Vivek Ramaswamy has stooped to such a despicable low as to attempt to turn the sexual abuse Amy endured at 12 years old from our birth mother's husband into a political talking point,”Philip Stearns, Acton’s brother, said in a statement.
Ramaswamy doubled down by ugly by calling Acton a liar, even though her stepfather, Cledith Arthur, was charged and fled the state. He eluded multiple warrants before dying in 2004.
It should go without saying that sexual violence against children should not be politicized or taken as lightly as Ramaswamy appears to take it.
Ohio Senate President Rob McColley, Ramaswamy's running mate, has attacked Acton for failing to disclose a 1993 traffic violation on her 1994 medical board application. The attack smacks of desperation.
Acton, then a pediatrics resident at Nationwide Children's Hospital, was eight months pregnant with her second child and four months back from maternity leave after the birth of her first child when she forgot to renew her driver's license.
Ramaswamy, who insists that Acton is not qualified to be governor despite her work history and credentials from some of the very Ohio public universities whose board members he'd pick, has Trump's seal of approval.
Although Trump's endorsement may not carry the weight it did when the president carried Ohio by 11 points two years ago over former Vice President Kamala Harris, it still holds tremendous power. Yet polls say the race between Ramaswamy and Acton is close despite him outspending her 3 to 1.
Ramaswamy has faced a particularly despicable form of racism from within the conservative movement. Casey Putsch, his primary challenger, was particularly offensive. On the national stage, Ramaswamy has also faced racist attacks from far-right Groypers and white nationalist Nick Fuentes, who encouraged Ohioans to either sit out the election or vote for Acton.
The attacks coming from Team Ramaswamy against Acton have been blatant, intrusive, and overwhelming. Nearly 50% of respondents to a Suffolk University/USA TODAY Ohio Networkpoll said Ramaswamy is engaging in more political mudslinging than Acton. Just 22.8% said Acton had been more negative and 11.2% said the negativity was equal.
The attacks from Acton and her running mate, David Pepper, the former chair of the Ohio Democratic Party, have been more subtle and include painting Ramaswamy as a con artist who hasn't earned his fortune.
As ugly as the race has been - particularly from the Ramaswamy camp - it is not the primary reason Ramaswamy is not suitable to be Ohio's governor.
Why voting for Vivek Ramaswamy is a big risk
Republicans have dominated Ohio's state politics since Gov. Ted Strickland's term ended in January 2011. Almost always a dangerous thing, one-party rule is particularly dangerous in the age of Donald Trump.
While Ohioans struggle to pay the expenses of daily life, extreme ideas about voting rights and elections, race and religion, education and women's reproductive rights, renewable energy and data centers, and LGBTQ issues and gender have turned Ohio into the epicenter of the nation's culture wars.
With McColley, a Lima resident like ultra-powerful Ohio House Speaker Matt Huffman, as his right-hand man, it is unlikely that Ramaswamy − far more conservative than Ohio's last three Republican governors: DeWine, John Kasich and Bob Taft − would provide a check on the legislature.
Ramaswamy, who in 2024 moved his financial services firm from Columbus to Dallas, told our editorial boards that he has had lengthy conversations with DeWine and wants to serve the 12 million people of Ohio.
"One of the things he's pledged to me is that they're going to have a draft budget that I'm able to use as a starting point, and I thank him for that," he said. "Using that, we're going to add on our own perspectives of what needs to be done."
But one cannot forget that Ramaswamy, ambitious and sometimes cocky, unsuccessfully ran for president in 2024 before entering the governor’s race. Trump endorsed Ramaswamy, clearing a crowded field for him.
DeWine, one of the most powerful Republicans in recent state history, certainly had his hands full with the Lima Boys, as we predicted he would in our 2022 endorsement of his Democratic challenger Nan Whaley.
If the undeniably weak Ohio Democratic Party can take advantage of the seemingly anti-Trump wave, some of the effects of gerrymandering could be reduced, and the Republican supermajority that has seen DeWine's vetoes overruled consistently will die, meaning that Acton, as governor, could stop some of the harmful legislation that oozes from the Statehouse. The Ohio Supreme Court is also dominated by the right.
There are already signs that Ramaswamy will be in lockstep with the General Assembly. Lawmakers were called back to Columbus to suspend the gas tax for 90 days afterRamaswamy teamed withlegislative leaders and called for it shortly after Acton did.
A play out of Donald Trump's how-to-bribe-voters book, the tax holiday came months after lawmakers declined to suspend the tax during a regular session.
While Ramaswamy has demonstrated the ability to evolve his thinking, particularly by abandoning his early pledge to outright eliminate property and income taxes for a plan to roll property taxes back to pre-COVID rates, the out-of-the-box, shoot-from-the-hip thinking that worked in business can be reckless when governing a state with complex laws and nuanced systems.
Nor should voters forget the slash-and-burn approach Ramaswamy advocated during his brief involvement with the Department of Government Efficiency alongside Elon Musk.
Ramaswamy entered the role intending to get rid of "75% of the headcount at least on day 1" per his October 2024 interview with the New York Times' Klein.
Ramaswamy said he'd motivate those working beneath him to be courageous and open-minded if elected governor when our board asked about potential state job cuts.
"There's only one thing they should have to fear is a leader who doesn't know what they're doing at the top. A leader who hides from this job," Ramaswamy said. "A leader who, in the worst case, quits on the job... everyone in the state, but including every member of the state employment base, should fear, is somebody who doesn't have the capacity to give them the leadership."
Cuts to the state government could be devastating to the local economy. A 2025 Columbus city community profileestimated that 24,217 state of Ohio employees reside in central Ohio, making it the third-highest employer behind Ohio Health with 24,662 workers and 36,433 at Ohio State University, whose employees are state workers.
Amy Acton has challenges
Acton has shortcomings. They include her refusal to debate Ramaswamy. We think all politicians should debate, which is why we joined other USA TODAY Network Ohio editorial boards in calling out Acton for not doing so, just aswe criticized DeWine for not debating Whaley in 2022, the first woman nominated by a major party to run for Ohio governor.
Acton says she didn't want to platform Ramaswamy's nastiness. We also suspect her decision was a strategic move, as DeWine's. Why debate and give Ramaswamy a potential opening when the race is close, despite the millions he is pumping into it?
Still, not debating is not a disqualifier, as Ramaswamy and his supporters say.
According to Axios, there will be no debates in 10 of the most closely watched gubernatorial races around the nation, including Arizona, Florida and Texas.
Acton told members of our editorial board that she will regularly meet with the media, but it is concerning that the press has been kept out of multiple Acton campaign events. The most egregious was a closed-door event at WOSU Public Media's Sandy and Andy Ross Community Studio, where reporters, including one from the Lantern, Ohio State University's student newspaper, were barred.
The event happened the same day she spoke with USA TODAY Ohio editorial boards and Ramaswamy participated in a Columbus Metropolitan Club forum. Acton declined a CMC invitation.
Ramaswamy has not been perfect with the press either. Cleveland Plain Dealer Editor Chris Quinn on Oct. 17 called him out for not answering reader-submitted questions.
Ohio needs a champion, not more chaos
The press access issues aside, it is clear that Ohio will be far better off under Acton's administration.
Amy Acton isn't a perfect candidate. That person doesn't exist. She is, however, someone with a vision for a better Ohio and the compassion and determination we need at this critical moment.
Ohio does not need more chaos. It needs balance and a champion who will work. Of the two candidates on the Nov. 3 ballot, Acton best fits that bill.
That's why Amy Acton has our endorsement.
This piece was written by Dispatch Opinion Editor Amelia Robinson on behalf of the editorial board of The Columbus Dispatch. Like other editorials, endorsements are fact-based assessments of issues of importance to the communities we serve. These are not the opinions of our reporting staff members, who strive for neutrality in their reporting.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Reckless behavior of this Ohio governor candidate can't be ignored. We're endorsing rival
