Ohioans saw Amy Acton nearly every day on TV in 2020, standing alongside Gov. Mike DeWine as the two gave the public the latest on how the COVID-19 pandemic would affect their lives.
They didn’t know much about what she believed, though, until she ran for governor.
As her campaign has unfolded this year, Acton has backed standard Democratic views on issues like public education and abortion rights. But she’s also announced conservative-leaning positions on several key issues by backing Medicaid work requirements, requiring a photo ID to vote in person and supporting a state law that bans transgender girls and women from girls’ and women’s sports.
Acton’s crossing-the-aisle stances have prompted criticism from some Democrats who view her as betraying the party’s core values. But supporters see them as winning politics in a red-leaning state like Ohio – which is a view some critics share, too.
David Niven, a University of Cincinnati speechwriter and former Democratic aide, said Acton’s stances “smack of pandering to the polls.” He also called Acton a “blank slate” whose lack of a voting record or history of commenting on political issues gives her an unusually wide berth to stake out whatever political stance she wants.
“The most generous reading here is this is somebody who wants to be governor of Ohio, and is acknowledging certain realities,” Niven said. “The least generous reading is this is a person who wants to be governor of Ohio, and will bend to any demand necessary to make that easier.”
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Ohio Democrats have struggled for years to compete in Ohio. The state has drifted to the right, especially after President Donald Trump’s election in 2016, while the Democratic Party has drifted to the left. As part of their strategy to stem their losses, especially when it comes to social issues, Democrats have recently tried to deemphasize them altogether.
It hasn’t always worked. In 2024, then-Sen. Sherrod Brown tried to downplay his past support for transgender rights as Republicans hammered him relentlessly for his record on the issue in TV ads. He lost to Republican Bernie Moreno, and some Democrats have blamed the ads as a major reason why.
But rather than simply shying away from social issues – Acton is the first recent major Democratic candidate to actually embrace some more Republican positions. The approach is reminiscent of a past generation of state Democrats like former Gov. Ted Strickland, who was elected as a pro-gun Democrat in 2006.
In an interview, Strickland, the only Democrat to hold the office since 1991, said he views Acton’s moves as savvy. He also said he’s advised Acton to not let herself get squeezed into a mold by her advisers.
“You’ve got to be true to your values and your beliefs,” Strickland said. “But you can’t be stupid.”
‘Jim Crow’ vs. ‘We have to have a way to have voter ID’
It’s easy to find Democratic politicians who are at odds with Acton’s position on Medicaid work requirements, voter ID and transgender rights.
A prime example is Acton’s running mate, David Pepper.
Unlike Acton, Pepper is a well-known political commodity with a long history of sharing his political views. He’s authored tens of thousands of tweets, written a Substack with a following in Democratic circles, produced a sizable number of online videos, made numerous media appearances and even published several books before, during and after he served as Ohio Democratic Party chairman from 2015 through 2021.
Pepper has levied especially harsh criticism at Ohio’s voter ID law, which DeWine signed into law in January 2023. The law newly required Ohioans to show a photo ID to vote in person, eliminating an old option under which voters could simply provide the last four digits of their Social Security number. It also reduced the amount of time voters had to submit their absentee ballots, among other changes.
Pepper, who had not yet joined Acton’s ticket, described the law in a since-deleted Substack post as a part of a broader, racist strategy by Republicans to disenfranchise thousands of Black voters like those who helped Barack Obama win Ohio in 2008 and 2012.
In that post and elsewhere, Pepper described the strategy as a threat to democracy and compared it to the Jim Crow South, in which Southern Democratic politicians systematically disenfranchised Black voters.
“It’s all about destroying the diverse coalition of voters that came together in Ohio in 2008 and 2012 to turn the state Blue,” Pepper wrote.
In contrast, Acton said earlier this month that she supports Issue 3, which would add the law Pepper criticized to the state constitution. Republican legislators voted in June to put the amendment on the November ballot, arguing it would make it harder to undo in the future. Voters will decide whether to approve it.
“I believe that we have to have a way to have voter ID, so I will support this,” Acton told reporters, according to WEWS, a Cleveland TV station.
Pepper also has criticized DeWine and other Republicans for pursuing work requirements for recipients of Medicaid, the government healthcare program for low-income and disabled people.
“Medicaid work requirement was never a good idea. “Would’ve hurt many,” Pepper wrote in March 2020 on the website then known as Twitter, around the time President Donald Trump put them on pause. “Even worse now.”
But Acton said in February she supports Medicaid work requirements, which DeWine has now implemented after Trump revived them upon reassuming the presidency last year.
“But we need to have the requirements and easy ways to do it,” Acton added, “which means more good workforce training and more other things that we’re trying to develop.”
A review from Signal Statewide couldn’t unearth examples of Pepper criticizing Ohio’s current transgender sports ban – which Democrats universally opposed when it went into effect in 2024, after Republicans overturned a veto from DeWine.
But Pepper vocally opposed a predecessor bill passed in 2022 by the Republican-controlled Ohio House that banned transgender athletes from girls’ and women’s sports. Pepper and other Democrats described the bill as mandating genital inspections of student athletes, citing a section that said if an athlete’s sex is questioned, they must defend against it using a signed doctor’s statement demonstrating their “internal and external reproductive anatomy,” hormone levels and genetic makeup.
Acton, in turn, has said she supports Ohio’s current law banning transgender athletes from girls’ and women’s sports. It does not contain the “genital inspection” language.
“I do not support boys playing in girls sports. This is already settled law in Ohio, and as governor I will enforce and uphold the law,” Acton’s campaign told the Toledo Blade in a statement in July, prompting a swift backlash among LGBTQ+ advocates.
Republicans aren’t giving Acton any credit for her political moderation. They’ve called her moves calculating, and her Republican opponent, Vivek Ramaswamy, has repeatedly described her on the campaign trail as a far-left socialist.
“It’s just inauthentic,” said Ohio Republican Party Chairman Alex Triantafilou, citing Acton’s choice of Pepper as her running mate as evidence. “It’s not authentic and voters see through that.”
Acton campaign officials reject the idea that Acton is campaigning on things she doesn’t believe. They say Acton has been consistent in her views as a candidate, unlike Ramaswamy, who they said has shifted his position on property taxes and data center policy, among other issues.
“Amy Acton is a doctor and a lifelong public servant, not a politician,” campaign spokeswoman Addie Bullock said in a statement. “She is proud to have spent her career working across the aisle, including with Republican Governor DeWine, to fight for what she believes in — a brighter future for Ohio families.”
Acton herself has promised voters that she is campaigning on ideas she believes in.
“I just am here to tell you I was unscripted every day you saw me on TV,” Acton said during a May 2025 appearance before the City Club of Cleveland. “That’s very unheard of in politics. So I’m going to keep being that same person. I couldn’t fake it. The first second I did, you would know it.”
‘Wise and strategic’
The common thread between supporting Medicaid work requirements, voter ID requirements and banning transgender girls and women from girls’ and women’s sports? They all poll well – and the standard Democratic position doesn’t.
An August poll from Suffolk University / USA Today found 70% of Ohioans oppose transgender girls participating on sports teams consistent with their gender identity. A May 2025 poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation found 62% of Americans support Medicaid work requirements. An October 2024 poll from Gallup found 84% of Americans support requiring voters to show a photo ID.
Strickland, the former Democratic governor, said he has no doubt that Acton, if elected, will fight for transgender Ohioans and Medicaid recipients, and also fight to protect voting rights.
But he said it doesn’t make sense for Democrats to let themselves “get pulled into culture wars that have little to do with the daily life of average Ohioans.”
“I think she’s very wise and very strategic in how she is conducting her campaign. I think it’s a winning strategy,” Strickland said.
