Republican gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy announced Wednesday he has accepted debate invitations from two TV stations: WLWT in Cincinnati and CNN, the national network. He publicly asked his Democratic oppopnent, Amy Acton, to join him.
“Ohioans deserve a substantive debate between their two candidates for Governor. I challenge Amy Acton to join me on the debate stage so voters can make a well-informed choice in November,” Ramaswamy said in a statement.
The feeling doesn’t appear mutual.
An Acton campaign spokeswoman said Wednesday that Acton “won’t” debate Ramaswamy, citing the attacks he and his allies have bombarded Ohio’s airwaves with via a deluge of campaign commercials.
The development likely means Ohio won’t see a governor candidate debate this year. It last happened in 2018, another competitive election year between Republican Mike DeWine and Democrat Rich Cordray.
Ramaswamy took to Fox News Wednesday night, challenging Acton to “show up.”
“If you’re not willing to debate, you certainly can’t lead this state,” Ramaswamy said.
Ohio’s COVID response was closer to Texas than you think
“Meet Ohio’s Fauci,” an Ohio GOP news release from July states. “Amy Acton’s COVID Record Disqualifies Her for Governor.”
Republicans, via the state party and Ramaswamy’s gubernatorial campaign, have relentlessly criticized Acton for her response to the first 94 days of a global pandemic while she was director of the Ohio Department of Health. She left the job in June of 2020.
Acton’s orders, issued via legal powers vested with the state health director, shuttered schools, businesses, bars and restaurants and all but unilaterally delayed an election. Just last weekend, Ramaswamy called her a “bureaucrat who shut down our economy [and] who will do it again” if given the chance.
But we went back through some key moments of a frightening and chaotic moment for the entire world (pandemic derives from Greek roots meaning all people) and noticed something that surprised us: Ohio’s “lockdowns” of the Acton era more closely resemble those of Florida and Texas than some care to remember.
For instance, Ohio shut down its K-12 schools the same day Florida did. And Ohio re-opened its outdoor bars faster than Texas. And like most GOP states at the time, Ohio spurned a mask mandate until well after Acton left.
Jake wrote about some of the blame games stemming from the pandemic – from Acton’s campaign emphasizing Gov. Mike DeWine taking ownership (or blame) for decisions made at the time to the perennial myth that Ohio forced churches to close during the pandemic.
Piketon data center – the world’s biggest construction site
New regulatory filings show just how big the natural gas fired power plant in Piketon will be. It is designed to power what OpenAI (the company behind ChatGPT) calls the nation’s largest data center.
Some fast facts:
- It will generate 1.77 gigawatts for now, more than enough to power a major city, and will raise capacity to 8 gigawatts down the line
- It will sit on 776 acres of land near the Department of Energy’s old Gaseous Diffusion Plant, which enriched uranium during World War II
- Developers say construction will begin in early 2027
- The project will create 960 construction jobs but only 40 permanent ones
- It’ll pay an estimated $3.6 million per year in property taxes over 25 years, which is significant in the economically depressed Pike County
- The gas plant in its more modest (1.77GW) form will emit 9.1 million tons of carbon dioxide per year, plus 781 tons of nitrogen oxides, 299 tons of volatile organic compounds, and 530 tons of carbon monoxide.
‘Is it too grand to happen?‘
A top official with the Piketon project developer, SB Energy, addressed the elephant in the room during a speech at an Ohio Manufacturers Association conference in Columbus last week.
“Is it too grand to happen?” said Abhjeet Sathe, the co-CEO of SB Energy, a subsidiary of Japan’s Softbank.
As you might expect, Sathe was there to argue that it is not.
To try to make his case, he catalogued the project’s A-list backing: Open AI and massive chip manufacturer NVIDIA, which is supplying and financing the project.
And then there’s the U.S. government, which will own the on site natural gas plant after jointly financing it with the Japanese government. He also repeated the company’s promise that the project won’t cause Ohioans’ utility bills to go up.
Sathe’s sunny commentary runs counter to that from some analysts, who have raised numerous questions about the project’s feasibility. Ohio also has recent experience with massive government-funded industrial projects that haven’t fully panned out. (Hello, Intel.)
Sathe said SB Energy has checked off one potential issue – it has “locked in” a supply contract for the massive turbines the plant will require, avoiding a shortage that has caused a year-long backlog plaguing the industry. The project, he said, will require 35,000 construction jobs over six years and 2,500 permanent jobs when it is complete.
Ohio AG race book club
You probably didn’t read Democrat John Kulewicz’ self-published 2025 memoir. But his Republican opponent in the attorney general’s race did and claims to have found the socialist tell.
State Auditor Keith Faber referenced the book during a pro-Issue 3 rally organized by the Ohio Republican Party in Columbus last Saturday.
Faber faulted Kulewicz, an Upper Arlington council member and retired lawyer, for including a quote in his book’s foreword from Eugene Debs, an U.S. labor leader who ran unsuccessfully for president under the Socialist Party banner five times in the early 20th century.
“I don’t know about you, but a moderate doesn’t start quoting socialism and communism,” Faber said.
The quote in question? Debs delivered it to a federal judge in Cleveland in 1918 just before he was sentenced to 10 years in prison for sedition for publicly opposing the military draft during World War I. (President Warren G. Harding commuted it after three years.)
“Your Honor, years ago, I recognized my kinship with all living beings, and I made up my mind I was not one bit better than the meanest on Earth,” Debs said. Kulewicz wrote he included the quote to illustrate what he said was the humbling experience of looking back on his life.
Asked about Faber’s negative book review, Kulewicz Campaign Manager Colin Flanagan said: “Does Auditor Faber disagree that the meek shall inherit the earth?”
Debs is a celebrated figure on the left still today. He’s drawn praise from the likes of Bernie Sanders and Zorhan Mamdami. He’s also gained some nonpartisan recognition: he was inducted in the U.S. Department of Labor’s Hall of Fame in 1990 during Republican President George H. W. Bush’s administration.
2028 watch
Former U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg is swinging by Ohio this weekend as he gears up for another potential presidential bid.
Among his upcoming scheduled appearances – a Saturday Labor Day AFL-CIO event in Cincinnati with Acton, a Sunday morning town hall with Cincinnati Mayor Aftab Pureval, and some private fundraisers, including one in Columbus on Sunday afternoon with Ohio Democratic Party Chair Kathleen Clyde.
Buttiegieg is the latest 2028 hopeful to drop in, including Democrats Mark Kelly, Ro Khanna, Kamala Harris and Andy Beshear. And don’t forget Republican Vice President JD Vance.
Ohio has issues
ICYMI, Andrew wrote an explainer this week for Issue 3, the voter ID amendment. His article published a few days after that pro-Issue 3 rally organized by the Ohio Republican Party we referenced previously.
As for the no campaign? It’s not clear at this moment whether there will be one. Sen. Bill Demora of Columbus tied that fact in part back to Acton’s support of the measure.
“Much to my chagrin, since our governor candidate came out for Issue 3, I don’t see any organized opposition from the Democratic Party to oppose it,” DeMora said.
In the news
“The least transparent midterm in history.” The New York Times’ Shane Goldmacher and Theodore Sheiffler detail the more than $1 billion in “dark money” political spending that’s flooding this year’s midterm, including in Ohio’s hotly competitive U.S. Senate and congressional races. Read more.
Ohio wiped out guardrails for homeschooling. It’s proving to be popular. The Columbus Dispatch’s Laura Bischoff and Cole Behrens report on a 2023 rollback of homeschooling oversight and the boom that followed. Read more.
Police identify suspect in crash involving Rep. Marcy Kaptur: The Toledo Blade’s Alice Momany and Yarko Kuk report that Toledo police have issued warrants for the arrest of a 23-year-old man they believe caused the hit-and-run crash that hospitalized Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur last month. Kaptur was released from a rehab hospital last week, but her office says she still has lingering injuries and has been unable to return to Washington. Read more.
“This is a horrible, horrible tragedy.” Avery Kreemer reports for the Springfield News-Sun that Gov. Mike DeWine expressed grief and disapproval after, police say, a 20-year-old Haitian student at Wright State University walked into traffic and died on I-70 on Monday morning. Pierre Damas Bel’s family and other advocates said he intentionally threw himself in front of traffic after saying he was bullied over the ICE ankle monitor he was required to wear while awaiting potential deportation. Read more.
