{"id":625849,"date":"2026-05-06T00:43:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-06T00:43:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/625849\/"},"modified":"2026-05-06T00:43:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-06T00:43:12","slug":"vivek-ramaswamy-wins-gop-nomination-for-governor-in-ohio","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/625849\/","title":{"rendered":"Vivek Ramaswamy wins GOP nomination for governor in Ohio"},"content":{"rendered":"

Businessman Vivek Ramaswamy<\/a> has won Ohio\u2019s Republican primary for governor, NBC News projects, advancing to what could be an expensive and competitive general election in a state that has been brutal for Democrats in recent elections.<\/p>\n

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Amy Acton, a former state health director, won the Democratic nomination Tuesday without opposition.<\/p>\n

Ramaswamy, 40, defeated Casey Putsch, a political novice known for his \u201ccar guy\u201d videos<\/a> on YouTube. Putsch\u2019s campaign played out largely through social media missives, some of them targeting Ramaswamy\u2019s Indian American heritage. A third GOP candidate, Heather Hill, was removed from the ballot<\/a> under a provision in state law after her running mate for lieutenant governor withdrew from the race.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know the American Dream exists because I\u2019ve lived it right here, in the state where I was born and raised,\u201d Ramaswamy said in a statement after his victory was called. \u201cWe\u2019re going to revive that American Dream in Ohio once again \u2014 with lower costs, bigger paychecks, and better schools for all Ohioans. I am grateful to everyone who helped us win today\u2019s election by historic margins, and I look forward to a decisive victory again in November.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ramaswamy\u2019s running mate for lieutenant governor is state Senate President Rob McColley. Acton is running with David Pepper, a former Ohio Democratic Party chair and past nominee for state attorney general and auditor.<\/p>\n

Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican, is term-limited.<\/p>\n

Polls suggest<\/a> a potentially close race between Acton and Ramaswamy in a state that has not elected a Democrat as governor in 20 years. DeWine won re-election<\/a> four years ago over former Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley by 25 points<\/a> \u2014 a testament to a unique brand that attracted independent and even some Democratic voters.<\/p>\n

Ramaswamy became wealthy in the biotech industry and gained attention as a Republican presidential candidate in 2024. He dropped out after that year\u2019s Iowa caucuses, endorsed Donald Trump and remained close with the once and future president\u2019s MAGA movement. <\/p>\n

As Trump prepared to return to the White House, Ramaswamy worked with billionaire Elon Musk to set up a Department of Government Efficiency, a federal initiative aimed at cutting costs that quickly became a political flash point. Ramaswamy resigned from the project ahead of Trump\u2019s 2025 inauguration to prepare his campaign for governor, which Trump endorsed the night it launched.<\/p>\n

\u201cVivek Ramaswamy is an out-of-touch presidential also-ran whose harmful agenda would drive costs even higher and make life harder for Ohio families already struggling to make ends meet,\u201d Meghan Meehan-Draper, executive director of the Democratic Governors Association, said in a statement Tuesday night.<\/p>\n

Ramaswamy\u2019s fortune and close ties to Trump underpin his campaign. He has raised $25 million from donors and recently chipped in $25 million of his own money. Those sums make it likely that Ohio\u2019s race for governor this year will be the most expensive in the state\u2019s history. Ramaswamy, despite a largely unthreatening primary challenge from Putsch, has been airing commercials<\/a> for weeks as part of an initial $10 million ad blitz<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Acton, 60, became a household name in Ohio when she was DeWine\u2019s health director during the early days of the Covid pandemic. <\/p>\n

She emphasizes that she grew up poor in Youngstown and lived a difficult childhood marked at times by hunger and homelessness. Acton does not have Ramaswamy\u2019s direct access to cash, though both raised about $5 million from donors in the first campaign finance reporting period of 2026. But Ramaswamy, thanks to his personal investment, reported having more than $30 million on hand, while Acton had $5 million.<\/p>\n

During her time in state government, Acton became a target of right-wing activists and protesters, some of whom reportedly wielded guns and signs<\/a> scrawled with antisemitic messages outside the Statehouse in Columbus and outside her home. Acton, who is Jewish, downplayed that scrutiny<\/a> as a factor in her resignation in June 2020. Later in 2020, after Acton gave an interview to The New Yorker, the magazine reported<\/a> that she had begun to \u201cworry that she might be forced to sign health orders that violated her Hippocratic oath to do no harm.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Businessman Vivek Ramaswamy has won Ohio\u2019s Republican primary for governor, NBC News projects, advancing to what could be…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":625850,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4,450,451,3,452,453],"class_list":["post-625849","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/625849","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=625849"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/625849\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/625850"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=625849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=625849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=625849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}