Sports fans recently got an unexpected glimpse of a policy idea from Vivek Ramaswamy: closing some of Ohio’s 16 public colleges and universities as a way to save money.
The idea surfaced in a nearly year-old video of Ramaswamy that his campaign published on social media just as two of those schools were playing in the March Madness men’s college basketball tournament.
“Vivek not a MACtion guy,” Doug Gottleib, a college basketball coach and former media personality, wrote in a glib post on X that referenced the name of the athletic conference for one of those schools, the University of Akron.
The Cook Political Report, a widely read nonpartisan elections intelligence service, then explicitly cited the rollout of the university proposal as an example of the “Whack-A-Mole” controversies that Ramaswamy has served up to Democrats over the past year. Cook downgraded Vivek’s chances in this year’s Ohio governor’s race from “likely Republican” to “lean Republican.”
“At this point, it’s clear that Ramaswamy has enough vulnerabilities to loosen his lock on this race,” wrote Matthew Klein, an analyst for the site.
The university proposal was just the latest of many provocative trial balloons that Ramaswamy has floated during his political career. The approach served him well during his long-shot campaign for president in 2024, helping him gain attention and eventually political celebrity.
But now it could be causing him political headaches. And Democrats say it’s helping them convince donors that Democratic frontrunner Amy Acton can beat Ramaswamy in the November election.
“I’m f—ing thrilled,” said Michael McGovern, a Democratic operative who recently repurposed Innovation Ohio, a liberal think tank, to churn out a torrent of anti-Ramaswamy content on social media. “Ohio Republicans passed over a college football legend and a guy who won statewide four times to nominate a living, breathing opposition research book.”
Even as they acknowledge the risks, Republicans counter that Ramaswamy’s willingness to float big ideas reflects a break from cautious, conventional politics – and a bold willingness to take on problems others avoid.
“It’s something that everyone knows is probably necessary,” a longtime Ohio Republican who spoke on condition of anonymity said of Ramaswamy’s university closure plan. They referenced longstanding financial strain at some schools, which nonetheless serve as economic and cultural anchors to communities across the state. “But to actually say it takes some balls.”
Ramaswamy isn’t “a career politician who reads from a script,” campaign spokesperson Evan Machan said.
“He is unafraid to have open, unfiltered dialogue with Ohioans across the state,” Machan said. “That’s true leadership, and that’s what Ohio needs. Vivek has offered original ideas to lower costs, raise wages, and improve education – while his opponent offers absolutely no solutions to accomplish those goals.”
From Threads to Democratic attack line
Ramaswamy’s college consolidation proposal followed an unusual path to the broader public notice it received.
As opposed to, say, a press release, it was included as a side point in a minute-long video Ramaswamy’s campaign posted to Threads, the lesser-known social media platform, on March 13.
The video first appeared in May 2025. The full context? Ramaswamy described the closure of some universities as an example of how the state government could cut costs without hurting services.
He said doing so would allow him to follow through on his campaign pledge to eliminate the state income tax, which would cause the state to lose roughly $10 billion a year, or about a quarter of its revenue.
“I love universities in Ohio. But we have too many of them. They need to be consolidated,” Ramaswamy said.
Acton’s campaign soon noticed the video, and posted a 16-second clip of it on social media. At the time of publication, it had been viewed 2.1 million times on X alone.
Acton then criticized the plan, saying she is proud of Ohio’s “world-class colleges and universities.”
“It’s March Madness, and I’m rooting for our Ohio colleges while my opponent wants to eliminate the teams on your bracket,” Acton said.
Ramaswamy’s proposal is just the latest in a series of eyebrow-raising proposals he’s made as a candidate. They range from politically daring to politically implausible.
During his unsuccessful run for president a few years ago, Ramaswamy floated raising the voting age to 25 for those who couldn’t pass a civics test or first complete six months of mandatory military service.
He also proposed ending birthright citizenship for the children of undocumented immigrants, nixing early voting and eliminating public teachers’ unions.
He’s continued that pattern as a candidate for Ohio governor.
He vowed to abolish property taxes at his campaign launch event last year before later backtracking, clarifying this month that he only wants to reduce them.
Over the summer, he proposed ending summer break for students and adding an extra hour to the school day as one way to reduce expenses for Ohio families. His campaign quickly deleted the video without explanation, leading some allies to falsely claim a copy that Acton’s campaign retained was AI-generated.
In a recent interview with Signal Statewide, Ramaswamy didn’t explain why he posted and then deleted the school proposal. But he described it as a way to be “open-minded” about solutions to improve education in the state.
Acton has repeatedly ridiculed the no summer vacation / longer school day plan. Holding back laughter, she brought the episode up again last month as an example of one of Ramaswamy’s many “interesting policy ideas” while appearing on Democratic Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear’s podcast.
“That’s been a lot of our campaign – it’s literally just been pointing out his own words,” Acton said.
“He says something… it turns into some moment his team regrets,” David Pepper, Acton’s running mate, told Signal Statewide on Wednesday. “And then they come along and try to clean up their mess.”
‘Real problems deserve thoughtful solutions‘
Unlike some of his other controversial proposals, Ramaswamy hasn’t backed off the university consolidation idea. Instead, he expanded on it in an op-ed, describing it as a proposed solution to a vexing problem.
The idea bears parallels to recommendations Ohio officials made a decade ago following a panel convened by then-Gov. John Kasich – another Ohio Republican with an improvisational style.
That study panel didn’t recommend closing any schools. But it did recommend incentivizing universities to better utilize buildings, reduce duplicate programs and push students to graduate in four years
In his op-ed, Ramaswamy noted that enrollment at some Ohio universities has cratered, leaving some in dire financial straits. He said Ohio has more universities than Florida despite having a smaller population, and said Georgia, another Republican-run state, successfully consolidated its public university system in the late 2010s.
“Skyrocketing tuition, cratering enrollment and declining quality of education are real problems that demand thoughtful solutions,” Ramaswamy wrote. “While my opponent sneered on social media at my ideas, she offers absolutely no alternative solutions to help Ohioans.”
Ramaswamy’s allies also painted him as being willing to catch arrows with his proposals, in contrast to what they describe as Acton’s light-on-details approach. His campaign recently published a $21 billion price tag for what it said a few key Acton proposals would cost – an estimate the Acton campaign disputed as “laughable.”
“While Amy Acton continues her campaign of zero substance, Vivek is willing to lead in an effort to produce better outcomes for students AND taxpayers,” McColley’s running mate, state Senate President Rob McColley, wrote on X. “Ohioans have a choice: empty rhetoric or real leadership.”
‘Shooting from the hip’
Candidates often play it safe, leaving voters with little to evaluate, said Kyle Kondik, an Ohio native who’s a political analyst for the University of Virginia. Ramaswamy’s willingness to tackle controversial ideas helps contribute to debate, he said.
But it can be politically risky to float disruptive plans, he said. It’s also tough to tell what from Ramaswamy is a serious proposal and what’s just more of a thought bubble.
“There’s a certain ‘shooting from the hip’ to these proposals and musing that he’s done,” said Kondik, whose Sabato’s Crystal Ball service, like the Cook Political Report, also recently re-graded the Ohio governor’s race from “likely Republican” to “lean Republican.”
Meanwhile, Ramaswamy’s diving into controversial issues makes it easier for Acton to sit back and take the opposite, politically safer position.
“Maybe radical solutions actually are needed,” Kondik said. “It’s just sometimes that can be a hard sell to voters.”
Matt Dole, chairman of the Licking County Republican Party, called Ramaswamy “highly intelligent,” and said his op-ed was “well-reasoned.”
He said the initial ad-hoc rollout on social media, though, prevented many people from getting the full story.
“I find Vivek to be very nuanced in having interesting ideas and not wanting to take anything for granted, which I find to be a positive in a gubernatorial candidate,” Dole said. “He just has to be careful about how it’s released.”
