Acton defeats Ramaswamy in Ohio governor’s race

Democrat Amy Acton is projected to flip the Ohio governor’s mansion, according to Decision Desk HQ (DDHQ), after a controversial ad from Republican rival Vivek Ramaswamy roiled the closing days of the race.

Acton was leading by 4 percentage points — 50 percent to 46 percent — with 76 percent of the vote reported by DDHQ as of 10:30 p.m. EST.

Acton is the first Democrat elected to the office in roughly 15 years, and the first woman elected as governor in Buckeye State history.

She’ll replace term-limited Gov. Mike DeWine (R), whose administration she worked with as a former director of the Ohio Department of Health.

Ramaswamy, a biotech entrepreneur and billionaire who ran for president in 2024, boasted key endorsements from President Trump and Vice President Vance, who rallied in Ohio as part of their blitz through red states ahead of the election. But Acton held a slight lead in the polls as Election Day approached, and she may have gotten a boost from Ramaswamy’s contentious attack ad.

Ramaswamy put $4 million behind an ad featuring Acton’s estranged mother calling the Democrat “a liar,” though Acton described a childhood of abuse that culminated in rape charges against her late stepfather.

Trump and Vance came to Ramaswamy’s defense, but other figures on both sides of the aisle decried the ad. DeWine, who had endorsed Ramaswamy, called it “deeply, deeply troubling.” And Sen. Jon Husted (R), locked in a tough fight with former Sen. Sherrod Brown (D), said he “ would not have run ” the ad.

The ad was seen by many as a last-ditch attempt from Ramaswamy to make a splash among Ohio voters as he trailed Acton in polls, though experts expected it would backfire. Cook Political Report shifted its rating of the race out of the “toss-up” column to “lean Democratic” amid the fallout, calling it “not the kind of TV ad you run if you’re winning — or even if you’re confident you can.”

Ramaswamy, who founded the biotech company Roivant in 2014, poured millions into his White House bid in 2024 before dropping out to endorse Trump. He put an estimated $36 million of his own funds into the 2026 governor’s race as his campaign outspent Acton’s.

Acton, a physician, painted Ramaswamy as an out-of-touch billionaire and refused to debate him as the race ramped up. Her campaign said a showdown would be akin to “platforming a scam artist.”

Her win is a rare flip in Ohio, where the governor’s mansion has been red since 2010 — and where Trump won in each of his three presidential races, after the state swung blue for former President Obama’s two elections.