Democrat Amy Acton is projected to defeat Republican Vivek Ramaswamy in Ohio’s open governor’s race, left vacant by term-limited Republican Gov. Mike DeWine.
Decision Desk HQ projected late Tuesday night that Acton has defeated Ramaswamy, marking a rare Democrat win for the state’s top office in a state President Donald Trump carried by more than 11 points in 2024.
The projection came at 10:30 p.m. EST, with Acton holding a roughly four-to-five-point lead as about 75-80 percent of votes were counted.
Decision Desk HQ projects Amy Acton wins the OH Governor General
#DecisionMade: 10:30 PM EST
Follow live results here: https://t.co/KAW2l7LHNo https://t.co/URXeHOk2lZ
— Decision Desk HQ (@DecisionDeskHQ) November 4, 2026
The race drew national attention after Ramaswamy, a biotech entrepreneur and former presidential candidate who received President Trump’s endorsement, aired an ad featuring Acton’s estranged mother.
The ad, which accused Acton of lying about childhood abuse, drew criticism from both sides and was widely described as backfiring.
Long before the final stretch, however, Ramaswamy had already drawn sharp pushback from within Republican and MAGA circles over comments he made in December 2024 while defending H-1B visas and foreign hiring.
In a lengthy post on X, Ramaswamy argued that top tech companies prefer foreign-born and first-generation engineers over “native” Americans not because of any innate IQ deficit but because American culture has “venerated mediocrity over excellence for way too long.”
Ramaswamy wrote that a culture celebrating “the prom queen over the math olympiad champ, or the jock over the valedictorian” will not produce the best engineers, and called for more hard work over “laziness,” more tutoring, fewer sleepovers, more books, and less TV.
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 we’re really serious about fixing the problem, we have to confront the TRUTH:
Our American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence for way too long (at least since the 90s and likely longer). That doesn’t start in college, it starts YOUNG.
A culture that celebrates the prom queen over the math olympiad champ, or the jock over the valedictorian, will not produce the best engineers.
A culture that venerates Cory from “Boy Meets World,” or Zach & Slater over Screech in “Saved by the Bell,” or ‘Stefan’ over Steve Urkel in “Family Matters,” will not produce the best engineers.
(Fact: I know *multiple* sets of immigrant parents in the 90s who actively limited how much their kids could watch those TV shows precisely because they promoted mediocrity…and their kids went on to become wildly successful STEM graduates).
More movies like Whiplash, fewer reruns of “Friends.” More math tutoring, fewer sleepovers. More weekend science competitions, fewer Saturday morning cartoons. More books, less TV. More creating, less “chillin.” More extracurriculars, less “hanging out at the mall.”
Most normal American parents look skeptically at “those kinds of parents.” More normal American kids view such “those kinds of kids” with scorn. If you grow up aspiring to normalcy, normalcy is what you will achieve.
Now close your eyes & visualize which families you knew in the 90s (or even now) who raise their kids according to one model versus the other. Be brutally honest.
“Normalcy” doesn’t cut it in a hyper-competitive global market for technical talent. And if we pretend like it does, we’ll have our asses handed to us by China.
This can be our Sputnik moment. We’ve awaken from slumber before & we can do it again. Trump’s election hopefully marks the beginning of a new golden era in America, but only if our culture fully wakes up. A culture that once again prioritizes achievement over normalcy; excellence over mediocrity; nerdiness over conformity; hard work over laziness.
That’s the work we have cut out for us, rather than wallowing in victimhood & just wishing (or legislating) alternative hiring practices into existence. I’m confident we can do it. 🇺🇸 🇺🇸
— Vivek Ramaswamy (@VivekGRamaswamy) December 26, 2024
The rant, which he posted during a broader online fight over H-1B visas, triggered widespread backlash from many conservatives who then struggled to support his campaign.
Acton, a physician and former director of the Ohio Department of Health, served under DeWine from 2019 to mid-2020 and became the public face of the state’s early COVID-19 response.
She and DeWine ordered school closures, business restrictions, and stay-at-home measures when confirmed cases were still low, earning her the nickname of “Ohio’s Anthony Fauci.”
Acton resigned in June 2020 amid protests outside her home and legislative pushback.
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