Ohio Campaign Pits Covid Nightmare vs. the American Dream

The Wall Street Journal ^ | June 26, 2026 5:26 pm ET | Barton Swaim

[E. Pluribus Unum]

In the governor’s race, Vivek Ramaswamy reminds voters that Amy Acton closed their schools.

Canton, Ohio

“You guys know I’ve worked with everyone on any side of an aisle who’ll solve a problem. But it’s now about extreme wealth, power, ideology, special interests, being shoved through the black box of state houses where a lot of times folks can’t even name who works there.” So said Amy Acton, Democratic nominee for Ohio governor, at the IBEW Local 212—the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers—on June 16 in the Cincinnati suburb of Sharonville.

The two sentences nicely capture her campaign strategy. Emphasize bipartisanship and avoid the deranged “resistance” rhetoric of the left, on the one hand—she didn’t mention Donald Trump. On the other, take traditional Democratic attitudes and express them generally—relate stories of people struggling to pay bills, call for increased school funding, vow to protect unions. (“Nonunion employers commit wage theft every day,” a union representative said in introducing Ms. Acton. She called for “an executive order on wage theft.”)

If Democrats elsewhere could bring themselves to follow Ms. Acton’s lead, they would do themselves a favor. A Fox News poll this week found Ms. Acton leading Republican Vivek Ramaswamy 50% to 49% in a state that last elected a Democratic governor in 2006.

Gov. Mike DeWine won re-election in 2018 and tapped Ms. Acton early the following year as state director of public health. In March 2020 the Covid-19 pandemic brought the U.S. economy to a halt. Ms. Acton, who holds degrees in medicine and public health, thus found herself the personification of public health, for Ohio’s 12 million residents, during the worst medical crisis in the past century.

“I know my voice can bring back a thing or two, right?” she told the roughly 200 people at the IBEW event. “We...”

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[hinckley buzzard]

Acton is a damaged, unstable person, and the campaign is hardly begun. Too many people recall bitterly how she grabbed authority granted by the obsequious DeWine, and ran amok with it. She was a control freak who nevertheless ran out of gas before it was over, quit her job and walked off without explanation. I think Vivek is a favorite to win.

[ronniesgal]

I hope so!!!! Many folk here are upset that he’s not a Christian, ect. I do not care, I just don’t want Acton.

[lightman]

Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority: still more when you superadd the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority.

Lord Acton

[imabadboy99]

Sorry i’m not voting to make ohio or america a colony of Mumbai. Do better, GOP.

[OHPatriot]

During Covid, Amy Acton came across as a low IQ whiney ass little bitch. Basically the female version of Dewhinner.

I find it hard to understand how a successful doctor is so willing to easily give up private practice or position at a hospital or at a large practice to become governor. From what I’ve heard, Acton spent her ENTIRE professional career as a state “medical” employee.

PLEASE, If you can’t vote for Vivek, VOTE AGAINST ACTON!!

[Bruce Campbells Chin]

More like COVID nightmare versus smarmy, know-it-all populist douche nozzle. I figure I’ll leave that line blank in my ballot because I’m hate them both.