Republican Vivek Ramaswamy is trailing Democrat Amy Acton by 7 percentage points in the Ohio governor's race, according to a Marist poll released Tuesday and first reported by the Washington Examiner. The survey shows Ramaswamy battling to keep Acton from becoming the first Democrat to sit in the Ohio governor's mansion since 2011.
The numbers mark a dramatic reversal from 2025, when Ramaswamy led by roughly 4 points on average. CNN chief data analyst Harry Enten said Monday that the race "has flipped from Ramaswamy over to Amy Acton, who's now up by 4 points in the polls" when surveying the broader polling average. The Marist result is worse for the Republican than that average.
The collapse is being driven by independent voters. Enten reported that Ramaswamy's net rating among independents has fallen to minus 25 across the survey data he reviewed — the lowest mark for a GOP gubernatorial nominee in Ohio since 2000. "No one has ever been this low if you're a GOP gubernatorial nominee in Ohio. No one has been this low except for Vivek Ramaswamy," Enten said on CNN. "The worst this century!"
For context, the last Republican to lose the Ohio governor's race, Ken Blackwell in 2006, fell to Democrat Ted Strickland by more than 20 points. Republicans have held the office since, with John Kasich winning twice and Mike DeWine winning in 2018 and 2022. DeWine is term-limited.
Ramaswamy entered the race with a complete and total endorsement from President Donald Trump, posted to Truth Social on Feb. 24 of last year within hours of his campaign launch. The endorsement effectively cleared the field, boxing out state Attorney General Dave Yost, state Treasurer Robert Sprague, and Lieutenant Governor Jim Tressel in a state where Republicans felt dominant. It also gave Ramaswamy almost two years to focus on keeping the mansion in GOP hands.
But the very connections to Trumpism that fueled his rise are now giving his party reason to worry, according to reporting from other outlets covering the race. On the campaign trail, Ramaswamy occasionally moderates his image as the brash MAGA warrior railing against "the woke left," pitching tax cuts and economic development when he's with suburban crowds and chamber of commerce types. He has promised to be "the most conservative Governor in Ohio's history," embraced AI data centers in a state where they are far from popular, and has not shrunk from Trumpian hardline immigration policies, especially when he appears with Trump.
"As Americans, we believe in merit, that the best person gets the job, regardless of their skin color, that you are judged not on the color of your skin, but on the content of your character and your contributions," Ramaswamy said during an Oct. 12 rally with Trump in Youngstown, where Acton grew up. "That is who we are as Americans."
One Ohio Democratic strategist, speaking to another outlet covering the race, reflected the apprehension pervasive in both parties: "Something is happening here. I just can't tell you what."
The spending gap tells its own story. Axios Cleveland reports the candidates offer sharply different visions for Ohio's future as campaign spending approaches nine figures, and in the increasingly nasty ad war, the spending suggests a far more lopsided fight than the polling alone.
Not every survey agrees. ActiVote's October poll, conducted among 400 likely midterm voters between September 27 and October 19, found Ramaswamy leading Acton by 2.8%, with an average expected error of 4.9%. That poll showed Ramaswamy leading among rural and suburban voters, voters under 65, men, white voters, and high-income voters, while Acton led among urban voters, voters 65 and older, women, Black voters, and graduate degree holders. The two candidates hold their own sides about equally firmly, with the race decided in the center, where that poll had Ramaswamy ahead 62% to 38%.
Enten has hammered Republican trouble with independents all cycle and usually ties it to prices. On Sunday, he pointed to an ABC News/Washington Post poll that had President Trump 52 points underwater on inflation. Most public surveys since late summer have shown similar headwinds for Republicans.
If Ramaswamy loses, Democrats will win the Ohio governor's office for the first time since 2006, and it would be among the starkest signs yet of how badly the midterm climate has turned for Republicans. Early voting is already underway in Ohio, and Election Day is November 3.
Our Take
Here's the uncomfortable truth Patriots in Ohio need to hear: this race should not be close. Trump carried Ohio three times by 8 to 11 points. The governor's mansion has been red for two decades. And yet a first-time candidate who ran a state health department through the COVID years — the same Amy Acton who became a folk hero to the lockdown left — is now leading the Trump-endorsed Republican by seven points in a Marist poll.
The independents number is the flashing red light. Minus 25 with independents is not a messaging problem you fix with one ad buy. It is a candidate problem. Ramaswamy can pitch tax cuts to the chamber crowd and rail against the woke left at the rally, but voters are hearing two different men, and the moderate suburbanites who decide Ohio elections are not buying either version.
The president's endorsement cleared the primary field. It did not, and cannot, clear the general election. Republicans who boxed out Yost, Sprague and Tressel on the promise that Ramaswamy was the safe bet should be asking hard questions right now — and so should the voters.
There are two weeks left. If Ohio conservatives want to keep the mansion red, they need to decide whether the candidate they have is the candidate who can win — and fast. What do you think, folks? Is Ramaswamy the right man for Ohio, or is it time for the party to face some hard facts?
