Democrat Amy Acton will be Ohio's next governor after The Associated Press called the race in her favor, making the former state health director the first woman ever elected to lead Ohio. Acton defeated Republican Vivek Ramaswamy in a contest that drew national attention and record campaign spending, flipping a governorship Republicans had controlled for years.
A Race Called Late Tuesday Night
According to NPR, Democrat Amy Acton, Ohio's former health director, will be the state's next governor following the AP's race call, and she is the first woman elected governor of Ohio. The call came at 10:49 p.m. Tuesday night, according to cleveland.com. FOX19 reported that Acton promised to unify Ohio and restore decency to the office while addressing residents' concerns.
In her victory remarks, Acton said Ohioans chose unity and decency over division and hate, and told the state she would serve all Ohioans regardless of how they voted, per the FOX19 report. She also said she would fight to lower costs, address corruption and build a fairer state. Speaking to CBS News, Acton said Ohio needed “a state house that puts Ohioans first, not special interests and corporations and billionaires.”
From Pandemic Health Director to Governor-Elect
Acton is a physician who served as director of the Ohio Department of Health, a role in which she led the state's early response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Outgoing Republican Gov. Mike DeWine appointed Acton to the post early in his first term, and she resigned in June 2020, the same NPR report notes. She will now succeed DeWine, who is leaving office after serving the two-term limit, with NPR reporting she takes office in January facing a GOP-majority legislature likely to severely limit her authority.
During the campaign, Acton leaned on her background in public health rather than politics, embracing proposals like a statewide child tax credit and medical debt forgiveness, the outlet's report states. Per cleveland.com's reporting, she has also called for expanding tax credits for children and lower-income families, banning fracking under state lands, and using state money to forgive medical debt. CBS News reported that Acton drew on her personal story, including experiencing homelessness as a child, to center her campaign on affordability.
Ramaswamy's Bid and a Bitter Ad War
Ramaswamy, an entrepreneur who made an unsuccessful bid against Donald Trump for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, according to NBC New York, had hoped to extend Republican control of a state that the outlet describes as having moved decisively to the right and backed Trump by comfortable margins in three straight presidential elections. FOX19 similarly noted that Ohio had been considered a definitive swing state that more recently voted for the GOP, and that the governor's race drew strong national attention.
The campaign turned ugly when Ramaswamy's camp announced it would spend $4 million to air an ad featuring Acton's estranged mother, Donna Arthur, calling her daughter a liar, the NBC New York report states. Spending on television and radio ads across the race hit a record $149 million, according to Columbus-based tracker Medium Buying, as cited by cleveland.com. Three-quarters of that total came from Ramaswamy and Republicans, the outlet reported, mostly funding negative ads portraying Acton as erratic and untrustworthy.
Breaking a Long Republican Hold
Just how long Democrats had been shut out of the governor's mansion depends on which count you use. NPR reported that Acton's win marks the first time in two decades that Ohioans have elected a Democrat to lead the state, while cleveland.com described it as the first Democratic win for the office in 16 years. Either way, cleveland.com's separate historical analysis found Republicans had won eight of the previous nine Ohio gubernatorial races, a streak dating back to George Voinovich's 1990 victory over Anthony Celebrezze.
Past Democratic wins have come by wide margins when they happened — Ted Strickland captured 60.5% of the vote in 2006, and Richard Celeste won with 60.6% in 1986, according to cleveland.com's review of statewide results. Republican John Kasich, by contrast, won in 2010 with just 49% of the vote. This year's race shifted 16.52 points toward Democrats compared with the 2024 presidential election in Ohio, according to NBC News.
