Vivek Ramaswamy Blows More Than $80 Million On Loss To Democrat Amy Acton As Red Ohio Flips Blue

Republican Ohio gubernatorial nominee Vivek Ramaswamy's highly anticipated run for the Buckeye State's highest office ended in disaster Tuesday after a projected loss to Democratic nominee Amy Acton.

Acton, a public health official whom POLITICO once called "Ohio's Anthony Fauci," looks to have the former 2024 Republican presidential candidate by five-point margin — as Acton garnered 50.8% of the vote to the billionaire businessman's 45.8%, with 87% of ballots counted, according to The Associated Press. This is the first time since 2006 that Ohio, a state which President Donald Trump carried three times in a row, has elected a Democratic governor.

Acton will succeed term-limited Republican Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, her former boss.

The Democrat's win came two weeks after Ramaswamy's campaign released an attack ad featuring Acton's estranged mother — who defended and remained married to a man accused of raping Acton as a child — which a GOP strategist called "political suicide."

As of Oct. 14, the biotech mogul — whose net worth was estimated in September to be $2.3 billion — raised a whopping $82 million for his ultimately unsuccessful effort, with half coming from his own money, according to OpenSecrets. Meanwhile, the victorious Acton fundraised just shy of $38 million, none of it from self-given loans.

In the Oct. 20 ad, Acton's elderly mother, Donna Arthur, alleges her biological daughter is a "liar" with a "serious problem" and urges voters not to back her. If she wins, Arthur claims, Ohioans' lives "will only get worse."

Although Arthur claims in the video that Acton lied about living in a tent as a child, she did not mention her then-husband, Cledith, who a grand jury indicted in 1978 for sexually abusing then-12-year-old Acton. Acton said in a 2019 interview she has not spoken to her mother since then, ABC News reported. The Arthurs remained married until the death of Amy's stepfather decades later.

A response from Amy Acton’s brother: pic.twitter.com/YegVTvkek0

— Benjamin Ryan (@benryanwriter) October 20, 2026

Despite widespread bipartisan backlash, Ramaswamy doubled down on the ad and, instead of pulling it, committed $4 million to promote it, Axios first reported.

BOMBSHELL:

Ohio Democratic gubernatorial candidate Amy Acton’s own mother urges voters not to vote for her daughter.

“My name is Donna Arthur and I’m Amy Acton’s mother. I worked at Children and Family Service Association, building one of the first two sexual abuse programs in… pic.twitter.com/NP7nURpOmn

— Walter Curt (@wcdispatch) October 20, 2026

"We now deserve to lose this race," an anonymous Republican strategist said, referring to the ad, Time reported.

The ad's release came after Acton was already leading Ramaswamy in many polls. A Marist University poll of likely voters conducted Oct. 15 to Oct. 18 found Acton had a lead of seven percentage points over Ramaswamy, 50% to 43%.

Despite boasting a Trump endorsement and handily winning the May gubernatorial primary, Ramaswamy came into the general election facing criticism by many on the right over his past statements on immigration and American culture. For example, the billionaire came under scrutiny from immigration hawks for his support for reforming, rather than abolishing, the 36-year-old H-1B visa program which allows employers to temporarily hire foreign nationals for certain "specialty occupations" at the expense of American citizens.

The reason top tech companies often hire foreign-born & first-generation engineers over “native” Americans isn’t because of an innate American IQ deficit (a lazy & wrong explanation). A key part of it comes down to the c-word: culture. Tough questions demand tough answers & if…

— Vivek Ramaswamy (@VivekGRamaswamy) December 26, 2024

"A culture that celebrates the prom queen over the math olympiad champ, or the jock over the valedictorian … that venerates Cory from 'Boy Meets World,' … will not produce the best engineers," he added in the widely panned post.

When the Daily Caller News Foundation traveled to Ohio to interview Ramaswamy in September, he refused to discuss the issue of H-1Bs on the record. (RELATED: H-1B Visas Are The One Topic Vivek Ramaswamy Refuses To Talk About)

The race is unique in that both major party's nominees had never previously held elected office.

Ramaswamy founded multiple successful businesses, including a biotech company valued at nearly $27 billion, Roivant Sciences. In 2021, his book, "Woke, Inc.: Inside Corporate America's Social Justice Scam," became a bestseller, landing him media appearances and paving the way for his longshot 2024 presidential bid against Trump two years later. After coming in a distant fourth place in the Iowa caucuses, however, he dropped out and endorsed Trump.

After winning the election, the then-president-elect named Ramaswamy and Elon Musk as co-leaders of a new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Ramaswamy, however, left DOGE on the first day of Trump's presidency, teasing he would run to be Ohio's next governor.

Acton, meanwhile, rose to prominence as the director of the Ohio Department of Health from 2019 to 2020. During the first few months of the COVID-19 pandemic, she supported stringent lockdowns and mask mandates for children. While she was ultimately an appointee and cabinet member of the DeWine administration, the Republican governor told reporters in late 2025 that "decisions that were made during COVID, they were my decisions, so no one should blame someone else if they don't like it."

DeWine appointed Acton to her position after he became impressed with her overcoming the adversity of her horrific childhood. Regarding her professional experience, however, the doctor notably only co-authored one research study about horseback riding injuries, the DCNF first reported.

Ramaswamy singled out Acton's COVID-19 record during the campaign, telling the DCNF she "shut down county fairs during COVID — outdoor events — while letting BLM riots proceed on the streets of Columbus and Cleveland in the name of science."