Ramaswamy, Acton, Husted and Brown win primary elections; Ohio’s fall races are set

The top of the ticket for Ohio’s November election is now set following a drama-free Election Night on Tuesday. 

Republican Vivek Ramaswamy was leading with 85% of the vote in his contest against Toledo-area YouTuber Casey Putsch when political news services started calling the race, about 20 minutes after polls closed. The win sets him up to face Dr. Amy Acton in the November election for governor after Acton, the former state health department director, won the Democratic primary unopposed. 

In Ohio’s other top race, U.S. Sen. Jon Husted won the Republican primary uncontested, while Democratic former Sen. Sherrod Brown cruised to a victory over Ron Kincaid, a minor candidate, leading with 92% of the vote around the time the race was called.

None of the four candidates faced major opposition – the most heated race was Ramaswamy’s contest against Putsch, who failed to raise enough money to fund a viable campaign, but generated media attention nonetheless by making incendiary statements targeting Ramaswamy’s ethnic background and religious views.  

The primary elections for governor largely wrapped up last year when other candidates either dropped out of the race or passed on it altogether. The Senate race never attracted serious interest beyond the marquee candidates.

But Tuesday’s results nonetheless turn focus to November, which will be Ohio’s highest-stakes election in years.

Acton vs. Ramaswamy matchup takes shape

Acton has come a long way since she launched her campaign for governor in January 2024.

At the time, President Donald Trump had just won Ohio by 11 percentage points, growing his 8-point margin in the previous two presidential elections. Democrats were down and out after voters ousted Brown, the party’s longtime standard-bearer, with Republican Bernie Moreno winning by 3 points. 

Meanwhile, Ramaswamy quickly emerged as the Republican frontrunner, landing Trump’s endorsement in February shortly after he launched his campaign. Ramaswamy brought an unusual star power to an Ohio race, having gained political celebrity with Republican voters following his unsuccessful run for president in 2024. His sense of inevitability increased when, over the summer, he posted record-setting fundraising numbers and saw his Republican rivals drop out.

But Acton’s campaign gradually picked up steam. 

First, she consolidated the Democratic field, with Brown and former congressman Tim Ryan both considering and passing on the race. Democratic insiders, skeptical of Acton’s lack of electoral experience and how voters would view her tenure advising Republican Gov. Mike DeWine during the early months of the 2020 coronavirus pandemic, gradually came around to her candidacy. 

Acton’s fundraising has improved over time, even exceeding Ramaswamy’s in the first several months of 2026, Ramaswamy boosted his campaign with a $25 million personal check last month while his affiliated super political action committee, which can raise and spend unlimited money, has amassed $23 million more. 

Acton’s improved fundraising has coincided with Democrats coming to believe they actually can win the governor’s race in Ohio. Doing so would require them to buck history – Republicans have occupied the governor’s mansion for all but four years since 1991. The state has only grown more Republican-leaning recently.

Acton argues she formed a relationship with Ohioans during the coronavirus pandemic that transcends politics. 

“The polling shows it doesn’t know party for me at all,” Acton said Tuesday outside a polling place in Columbus. “That all got sort of baked into my relationship of trust with Ohioans. And what we’re seeing is also a movement for change.” 

Democrats’ ‘Pipe dream’

Ramaswamy referenced Democrats’ growing hopes during a Monday night campaign event in Columbus. He described how Democrats won Ohio’s governor race in 2006 during the second term of another Republican president, George W. Bush.

“They turned Ohio blue at a time that was thought to be impossible,” Ramaswamy said. “Well, that’s their dream. And it’s going to remain a pipe dream on their part.” 

Ramaswamy has two goals for the November election. First, he obviously needs to win. But he’s also described the need for a governing mandate to implement his platform of tax cutting, government consolidation and deregulation. A big win also would strengthen his status as a national party standard-bearer, setting him up for another run for president within the next decade or so. 

Ramaswamy had ignored Putsch, instead focusing on the November election. His campaign has held a spate of freewheeling town halls focused on issues like public safety and Lake Erie protection after spending much of 2025 on the rubber-chicken dinner circuit held by local county parties. 

Ramaswamy, a billionaire entrepreneur, says he will run Ohio like a businessman and change Ohio’s trajectory as a state that’s projected to lose population by 2050. 

“I believe I’m the one person in this state who can lead Ohio to be the top state in the country to raise a young family, to revive the American dream,” Ramaswamy said Monday night.

On Election Night, Ramaswamy said his sights are set on November.

“We have a historic opportunity to lead Ohio to be the top state in the country, to raise a young family, to give our kids a world-class education, and to be the state where we revive this quaint idea that we call the American dream,” he said.

Acton faces perennial question

For Acton, the main question is simple: Can Democrats win statewide in Ohio? 

Other red states, like Kansas and Kentucky, have elected Democratic governors in recent years and show it’s theoretically possible. But Democrats in Ohio also have a history of getting their hopes up only to be disappointed in 2014 and 2018, the last time Democrats enjoyed a “Blue Wave” election environment. In the last midterm election in 2022, Democrat Nan Whaley lost to DeWine by 25 points. The string of losses has contributed to Ohio’s reputation shifting from the consummate swing state to a safe Republican one.

In contrast to Ramaswamy’s calls for sweeping change, Acton has run a cautious campaign that recalls the Hippocratic oath that doctors take – do no harm.

In some ways, she’s seemingly argued for an extension of DeWine’s term in office – like DeWine, she’s emphasized government programs aimed at boosting public health and supporting children. Her plan to tackle the rising cost of living adapts a version of a DeWine idea to deliver tax cuts to low-earning Ohioans. She’s even embraced DeWine’s plan to impose work requirements on Medicaid recipients, an eyebrow-raising move for a Democrat. 

But Acton also has said she’ll take Ohio in a far different direction when it comes to funding schools and local governments, while criticizing Republicans’ long-term focus on cutting income taxes – fault lines similar to those the parties have fought over for years. Even as Acton has tried to portray a nonpartisan image, her winning would be a game-changer for state Democrats, providing them with thousands of state government jobs that would help the party rebuild after years of decline. Acton has referred to the hypothetical scenario as a “massive call to public service.” 

Ramaswamy has attacked Acton for her tenure helping lead the state’s coronavirus response – even as he’s accepted an endorsement from DeWine, who actually led that response – which he said set back schoolchildren immeasurably. He also has described Acton as lacking attention to detail, and portrayed her as a “socialist,” a common Republican attack line.

Acton, meanwhile, has steadily attacked Ramaswamy’s wealth, describing him as out of touch, and said his policy ideas would gut public schools and other key government services.

At her Election Night event, Acton delivered a message of anti-corruption and affordability, looking past her uncontested primary and toward the general election in November.

She called her opponent a “self-funding billionaire” and promised to “end the corruption in the statehouse that has held us back for far too long.” She painted him as a jet-setting aristocrat, bent on unpopular ideas like reducing Medicaid funding or consolidating or closing Ohio schools. 

“You can’t buy us,” she said, leading a crowded downtown Columbus ballroom in a chant.

Ramaswamy’s penchant for sweeping, provocative policy ideas also has given Democrats plenty of material to work with, contributing to observers rating the race as competitive. The Republican, meanwhile, has portrayed himself as an innovative truth-teller who’s not afraid to present the public with bold ideas.

Husted vs. Brown

This year’s Ohio Senate race exists because of Donald Trump. 

When Trump won the presidency in November 2024, he chose JD Vance – then Ohio’s junior senator  – as his vice president. That created a vacancy, and because Vance left so early in his term, Ohio law required a special election this year rather than waiting until 2028, when Vance’s seat was next on the ballot.

That quirk of timing has made Ohio central to Democrats’ hopes of retaking the U.S. Senate. Their path is steep: hold all their current seats, flip Republican-held seats in Maine and North Carolina, and win in at least two states Trump has won every time he’s run – Alaska, Ohio and Texas.

Both parties have started spending accordingly. 

The Senate Leadership Fund, a main campaign arm of Senate Republicans, announced earlier this month that it would spend $79 million defending Husted, the most of any state. 

Senate Majority PAC, a top campaign arm for Senate Democrats, meanwhile announced Tuesday it would spend $40 million supporting Brown. 

The race has attracted other national spending, drawing in corporate interests including the cryptocurrency and sports betting industries. In total, this year’s Senate race is looking increasingly like a repeat of the historically expensive 2024 Senate race Brown lost, in which Republicans and Democrats spent nearly $250 million total.

Husted has held the seat since January 2025, when DeWine appointed him to fill the vacancy. The move allowed Husted, who had served as DeWine’s lieutenant governor since 2019, to continue his political career and avoid what looked like a run against Ramaswamy for governor. 

Since taking office, Husted has emphasized similar issues he focused on during his time as DeWine’s lieutenant governor, such as workforce development. His campaign has cast Brown as also-ran, presenting Husted as an alternative to Brown’s decades in office. Whether Republicans dust off the transgender attacks and other culture war issues that helped sink Brown in 2024 remains to be seen.

Brown, who represented Ohio in the Senate from 2006 to 2024, meanwhile was a top recruiting target for national Democrats. Since being convinced to run, he’s run a textbook Democratic playbook. That’s involved holding small-group roundtables around the state attacking Husted and other Republicans for cutting social spending, failing to lower the cost of living and backing Trump’s ongoing war in Iran, which has contributed to a spike in gas prices.

At his Election Night event in Cleveland on Tuesday, Brown framed his race in populist terms.

“Jon Husted works for big corporations,” Brown said. “Ohio doesn’t have to accept that type of corruption. It’s why we see ohioans of all backgrounds all over the state showing up to fight for change.”

Husted also faces an unusual external problem this year – the likelihood that he will end up testifying in a corruption trial the month before the election. 

Husted spent an uncomfortable hour on the virtual witness stand in March, getting grilled by a state prosecutor about a meeting he held with former FirstEnergy executives who now face state and federal charges for their role in the passage of a 2019 energy law. The trial ended in a hung jury, and a retrial is set for Sept. 28. 

Democrats used the testimony as an opportunity to point out Husted’s close connections to the scandal’s central figures, although he hasn’t been accused of wrongdoing. They’re likely to do so again later this year.

Husted didn’t have an Election Night event. But in a statement, Campaign Manager Drew Thompson said Husted is “focused on the clear choice that lies ahead this fall.”

“Over the next six months, Ohioans will hear a lot from Sherrod Brown about his so-called solutions,” Thompson said. “The truth is, after 32 years in Washington, he created the very problems he now blames others for. His record is indefensible. That’s why he can’t talk about it.”

“Fortunately, Jon Husted is working to reverse Sherrod Brown’s failed policies with a common-sense agenda that lowers costs, secures the border, cuts taxes on tips and overtime, supports law enforcement, and puts Ohio first.”

The big picture

A win for Husted would mean Republicans likely have held the Senate, and will position him well to someday run for governor, his long-time political goal. 

For Brown, a second election loss would be an unceremonious end to a storied political career stretching back to 1974, when he was elected to the Ohio Statehouse as a Yale University student.

On the other hand, a win would provide Brown with a political comeback with little modern precedent in Ohio political history. 

The last comparable example may be Howard Metzenbaum, who lost a Senate primary in 1974, but then came back to win the seat two years later. 

Signal Statewide reporters Amy Morona and Jake Zuckerman contributed to this story