The Indian American Republican is facing political headwinds, questions about his appeal as a candidate, and attacks over his Hindu faith and Indian heritage as polls show a competitive governor’s race.
The last time a Democrat won an Ohio gubernatorial election was in 2006, when then-U.S. Rep. Ted Strickland trounced Republican Ken Blackwell by nearly 24 percentage points.
The political environment that year strongly favored Democrats. President George W. Bush’s popularity had been battered in part by the increasingly unpopular Iraq War, while Blackwell carried political baggage of his own. Strickland ultimately captured more than 60 percent of the vote in what was then considered one of the nation’s premier swing states.
Two decades later, could Ohio be on the verge of electing another Democratic governor?
Republican Gov. Mike DeWine is term-limited, opening the door to a closely watched contest between Indian American biotech entrepreneur and former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy and Democrat Amy Acton, a physician and former director of the Ohio Department of Health.
Ramaswamy entered the 2026 race in a state that has moved decisively toward Republicans in recent elections. Since voting for Barack Obama in 2012, the Buckeye State has backed the Republican presidential nominee in three consecutive elections. President Donald Trump carried Ohio comfortably in 2024.
But the 2026 gubernatorial contest has turned out to be surprisingly competitive, with several recent polls showing Acton ahead, while others have found Ramaswamy leading or the race tied.
The latest New York Times/Siena University poll, released Oct. 4, gives Acton a four-point lead among likely voters, 49 percent to 45 percent. The survey of 616 Ohio voters was conducted from Sept. 22 to Oct. 1.
And the Times/Siena survey is not an outlier.
A USA TODAY Network Ohio/Suffolk University poll released Oct. 2 showed Acton with a nine-point advantage, 50 percent to 41 percent.
A Marist poll released Sept. 29 also found Acton ahead, 50 percent to 44 percent among registered voters.
Republicans have dismissed the polls, pointing to several recent elections in which Democratic candidates performed better in pre-election surveys than they ultimately did at the ballot box.“The polls in Ohio are all over the place right now and, in my view, not very reliable,” said Vinson Xavier Palathingal, who campaigned for Ramaswamy in Iowa during the 2024 presidential election. “Recent polls have produced dramatically different results, ranging from a small Vivek Ramaswamy lead to a sizable Amy Acton lead.”
Nonetheless, the competitiveness of the race is striking in a state Trump carried comfortably in 2024.
READ: Vivek Ramaswamy’s fortune hits $2.3 billion as Ohio governor odds fall (September 22, 2026)
So why is Ramaswamy, who once appeared well-positioned to keep the Ohio governor’s mansion in Republican hands, struggling to gain a clear advantage?
There are several factors that may help explain Ramaswamy’s difficulties.
To begin with, Republicans are facing political headwinds reminiscent, in some respects, of 2006. Trump’s approval ratings have fallen amid voter concerns over the economy, inflation and high gasoline prices, as well as the continuing war with Iran. Those concerns have created a difficult political environment for Republicans heading into the midterm elections.
That dynamic appears particularly pronounced in Ohio.
The Suffolk University/USA TODAY Network Ohio poll found widespread pessimism about the state’s economy, dissatisfaction with the direction Ohio is heading and disapproval of Trump’s job performance — factors the pollsters said are contributing to Ramaswamy’s difficult race.
More than half of those surveyed, 54 percent, said Ohio was on the “wrong track,” while 76 percent rated the state’s economy as fair or poor. Trump’s job approval rating in the survey stood at just 35 percent.
Other polling points in the same direction. A Marist survey released Sept. 29 found that 56 percent of Ohio registered voters disapproved of Trump’s job performance, while 41 percent said their personal finances had worsened over the previous year.
And Ramaswamy is not the only Ohio Republican facing a difficult political environment.
In the same Marist poll, Republican Sen. Jon Husted trailed former Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown by eight points, 52 percent to 44 percent. Democrats also held a three-point advantage, 50 percent to 47 percent, when voters were asked which party’s candidate they would support for Congress.
Other recent surveys have also shown Husted trailing Brown, suggesting that the political headwinds facing Republicans in Ohio extend beyond the governor’s race.
For Ramaswamy, as for Husted and other Republican candidates in states where Trump has traditionally performed strongly or where the electorate is closely divided, the challenge is navigating broader voter dissatisfaction while remaining closely identified with the president.
The second factor is Ramaswamy himself.
READ: Vivek Ramaswamy leads a new era of wealthy Indian Americans (September 21, 2026)
When he ran for president in 2024, Ramaswamy emerged as a rising figure in the conservative movement, attracting attention for his combative debate performances and unapologetic embrace of Trump-era populism. After dropping out of the Republican primary, he quickly endorsed Trump and became one of his most visible surrogates. There was speculation about a possible role in a second Trump administration — even occasional talk of Ramaswamy as a potential running mate.
After winning the election, Trump tapped Ramaswamy and Elon Musk to lead the newly created Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. But Ramaswamy left the initiative around the time Trump took office, before DOGE began operating in its new form inside the federal government. His departure was officially linked to his plans to run for governor of Ohio, but news reports also described tensions with Musk and others in Trump’s orbit.
One episode in particular complicated Ramaswamy’s relationship with parts of the MAGA movement: the bitter debate over the H-1B visa program.
In December 2024, less than a month before Trump returned to the White House, Ramaswamy defended the importance of recruiting highly skilled foreign workers while arguing that American culture had placed too little emphasis on academic and technical excellence.
“A culture that celebrates the prom queen over the math olympiad champ, or the jock over the valedictorian, will not produce the best engineers,” he wrote on X.
The remarks triggered an intense backlash from immigration hardliners and other prominent voices on the MAGA right. Ramaswamy later stressed that he considered the H-1B system “badly broken” and wanted it replaced with a merit-based system, rather than simply preserving the existing program. But the controversy exposed a deep divide within Trump’s coalition between immigration restrictionists and technology executives who argue that companies need access to highly skilled foreign workers.
The episode may also have contributed to Ramaswamy’s departure from DOGE. Politico reported at the time that his H-1B comments accelerated tensions with people in Trump’s orbit, while The Washington Post reported broader disagreements between Ramaswamy and Musk over how DOGE should operate.
His enormous personal wealth has created another political challenge. Forbes estimates Ramaswamy’s net worth at about $2.3 billion, wealth accumulated largely through his career in biotechnology and investments. Critics on both the left and the populist right have at times used that background to portray him as an elite financier rather than the anti-establishment outsider he presents himself as.
READ: Vivek Ramaswamy unveils 10-Point Ohio Governor agenda (June 28, 2026)
His business record has also faced scrutiny.
Ramaswamy founded Roivant Sciences in 2014 with a business model centered on acquiring drug candidates developed by other pharmaceutical companies and creating subsidiaries to bring them through further development. One of the most scrutinized cases involved Axovant, a Roivant subsidiary that acquired an Alzheimer’s drug candidate for $5 million. Axovant subsequently went public at a multibillion-dollar valuation, but the drug later failed a major clinical trial and the company’s stock plunged.
Critics have questioned Ramaswamy’s financial gains from Roivant during the period and portrayed the Axovant episode as an example of investors bearing losses while he prospered. Ramaswamy and his representatives have pushed back against such characterizations. His broader business record is also more complicated than the Axovant failure alone: Roivant developed a portfolio of pharmaceutical companies and products, and Ramaswamy retained a substantial ownership stake in the company.
His business dealings in China also became an issue during the 2024 Republican presidential primary. Roivant partnered in 2017 with CITIC Private Equity to create Sinovant Sciences to develop and commercialize medicines in China. Republican rivals cited the relationship while attacking Ramaswamy’s tough-on-China political message. His campaign responded that the experience of doing business there helped shape his increasingly hawkish views and noted that Roivant’s China operations were later wound down.
There is also the less consequential but potentially revealing matter of political image.
Ramaswamy has occasionally faced criticism that he appears out of touch with ordinary voters. A recent campaign video showing him taking swings in a batting cage, for instance, drew ridicule online, including from Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear. Ramaswamy, an accomplished tennis player, swung enthusiastically but looked considerably less at home with a baseball bat.
Rajiv Bhateja, a co-founder of They See Blue®, a grassroots organization that mobilizes South Asian Americans to participate in the democratic process, summed up, “He’s a biotech billionaire and not very personable — comes across a bit stiff and doesn’t connect well with voters.”
The third factor is more uncomfortable: Ramaswamy’s Hindu faith and Indian heritage have become targets for a vocal faction of the far right.
The governor’s race is also unfolding amid an increasingly contentious debate on the right over Indian immigration, H-1B visas and the role of foreign-born workers in the U.S. economy. Anti-Indian rhetoric that once largely occupied the fringes of the internet has increasingly surfaced in conservative political debates.
Ramaswamy has encountered some of that hostility directly. At a campaign event in Ohio earlier this year, for example, a questioner challenged whether Ramaswamy, a practicing Hindu, had sufficiently “integrated” into American society. Ramaswamy responded by asking the man to name the Ten Commandments. When he could not, Ramaswamy proceeded to recite them himself, drawing applause from the audience.
The Ramaswamy family’s immigration history has also been weaponized against him. Vivek was born in Cincinnati in 1985 to Indian immigrant parents and became a U.S. citizen at birth. Neither parent was a U.S. citizen at the time; his mother later naturalized, while his father has remained an Indian citizen. Ramaswamy has said his parents were in the country legally.
Some critics on the right have mockingly labeled him an “anchor baby,” a derogatory term generally used for U.S.-born children of noncitizen immigrants. In Ramaswamy’s case, the label is particularly misleading if intended to suggest that his parents were undocumented: his campaign has said both were lawful permanent residents when he was born.
Among the figures on the far right who have attacked Ramaswamy is white nationalist commentator Nick Fuentes, who has repeatedly made race, ancestry and national origin central to his conception of American identity.
The confrontation between the two became particularly explicit after Ramaswamy published a New York Times guest essay in December 2025 denouncing “Groyperism,” the movement associated with Fuentes. Ramaswamy argued that a vision of American identity based on “lineage, blood and soil” was incompatible with a competing vision based on shared national ideals.
Fuentes responded by making Ramaswamy himself a target, attacking his Indian heritage and calling for his supporters to oppose his candidacy in Ohio.
The attacks illustrate a broader tension confronting Ramaswamy. He has built his political career as an outspoken champion of the America First movement, but a faction within that same movement defines American identity in racial, religious or ancestral terms that can exclude someone with his background.
For South Asian American Democrats such as Bhateja, Ramaswamy’s difficulties in connecting with parts of the MAGA coalition have produced a degree of satisfaction.
“[There’s] the unfamiliar name and religion that most Republicans won’t relate to. Other than having Trump’s endorsement what does he really have to offer?”
Palathingal, however, sees reasons for Ramaswamy supporters to remain optimistic, saying “several factors could ultimately work in Vivek’s favor.”
He pointed to Ohio’s increasingly conservative voting patterns over the past several election cycles and what he sees as the growing influence of the Democratic Socialists of America within the Democratic Party.
“DSA-aligned democratic socialists, Marxists and Islamists among Democrats will push some voters toward the conservative side and, more importantly, highly motivate conservative voters who might otherwise sit out a regular midterm election,” he said. “That increased enthusiasm could be particularly important for Vivek.”
None of these factors alone explains why a Republican candidate is locked in such a competitive race in a state Trump won comfortably. Taken together, however, they point to a challenge that is distinctly Ramaswamy’s: translating the national profile, wealth and ideological combativeness that helped propel his rapid rise in Republican politics into broader appeal among Ohio voters.
That leaves Ramaswamy in the unusual position of simultaneously championing much of the MAGA agenda while defending his own place within the American conservative movement against critics who question whether an Indian American Hindu can fully belong in it.