Republican Ohio governor nominee Vivek Ramaswamy sat down with regional journalists to lay out his plans for public education, taxes, job creation and data centers, addressing head-on the wealth that has become a flashpoint in his campaign against Democrat Amy Acton. The biotech billionaire and former presidential candidate described growing up in what he called a middle-class family, even as Forbes estimates his current fortune at $2.3 billion.
The interview, conducted by journalists from the Dayton Daily News, Springfield News-Sun and Journal-News, comes as Ramaswamy and Acton compete in a race already shaping up to be the most expensive gubernatorial contest in Ohio history, according to WOSU. Ramaswamy and allied groups have poured more than $120 million into advertising in the state, more than triple what Acton's side has spent, CNN reports. Despite that spending gap, polls show the contest remains close, per the same CNN report.
Wealth Becomes a Campaign Flashpoint
Acton, Ohio's former public health director and the Democratic nominee, has criticized Ramaswamy as disconnected from average Ohioans because of his wealth. Forbes notes that if elected, Ramaswamy would become America's second-richest governor and the country's third-wealthiest elected official, trailing only President Donald Trump, now worth an estimated $7 billion, and Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, an heir to the Hyatt hotel fortune worth an estimated $4.2 billion, according to Forbes. Ramaswamy would also be seeking to become Ohio's first Indian American governor, first Hindu governor and first billionaire governor, per CNN.
In the interview with the Dayton Daily News, Ramaswamy called Acton's criticism hypocritical, arguing that celebrating upward economic mobility would increase it rather than discourage it. He said he self-finances his campaign and matches more than every dollar raised, adding that his financial independence shields him from many special-interest donors. Ramaswamy said he lacks experience in Ohio government, telling CNN, “I don't have experience in Ohio government. … But for my part, I'm an outsider.”
Tax Plans Tied to Growth
At the center of Ramaswamy's platform is a pledge to gradually eliminate Ohio's income tax over eight to 10 years, a plan he has linked to economic growth. He has also promised to roll property taxes back to pre-pandemic levels and then cap their growth going forward, according to the WOSU report from early September.
Ramaswamy's broader tax platform centers on eliminating state capital-gains taxes, eventually eliminating the flat income tax, and returning property taxes to prior rates, the Dayton Daily News reports. Estimates put the proposed capital-gains tax cut at $300 million to $400 million, while Ohio recently collected about $700 million more in income taxes than expected. Ramaswamy said he would use state funding to help fill local funding shortfalls caused by his proposed property-tax rollbacks, and he committed to state backstops for significant shortfalls in police, fire, schools or veteran services.
Education Funding and Accountability
On education, Ramaswamy said Ohio teachers' starting salaries should be higher than they are today and that his administration would look into how much to raise them, according to the Dayton Daily News interview. Ohio's entry-level, first-year teachers have a starting salary of $38,000 per year by some measures, the outlet reports.
Ramaswamy said he believes too much public school funding goes to areas outside the classroom and wants to prioritize in-classroom instruction. He also wants to give school principals and superintendents greater discretion to reward high-performing employees, and he said he has not proposed eliminating teacher unions as part of this campaign. On attendance, Ramaswamy said chronically absent children should prompt some accountability for parents, stating there has to be some matter of accountability for the parent. His long-term goal, per WOSU, is a statewide funding component that gradually weans schools off exclusive reliance on local property taxation.
Strict Rules Proposed for Data Centers
Data centers have, alongside property taxes, emerged as one of the top two issues in the governor's race, according to WOSU. Ramaswamy has proposed a data-center development framework. Under an order he'd sign on his first day in office, new data centers would have to generate their own power, he told WOSU.
He also said excess power generated by large data centers would have to go directly into a power purchase agreement benefiting the local community, with Ramaswamy saying he wants data centers to pay for residential electricity for thousands of nearby homes, per the seed reporting. His plan would prioritize siting data centers on abandoned industrial sites rather than virgin fertile farmland or residential areas, and he said he's considering requiring trees and vegetation around the facilities to cut down on noise. Ramaswamy also wants data centers to meet water- and air-quality standards and to end property-tax abatements that local governments use to attract such development.
Ramaswamy has disclosed that he holds stock in Prologis, a data-center developer, and has said he would divest from such holdings if elected. Under Ohio law, an agreement granting a data-center tax exemption must address continued eligibility and operations; if operations cease and then resume within 18 months, taxpayers cannot claim the exemption for equipment purchases made during the cessation period, according to Ohio Revised Code Section 122.175.
Jobs, AI and the Case for Staying in Ohio
Ramaswamy has discussed career-technical education. He argued that artificial intelligence will create jobs and worsen workforce shortages rather than displace workers, saying Ohio has no real evidence of job displacement from AI.
