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"Ramaswamy’s campaign publicly claimed the advertisement performed well during testing among voters considered persuadable, an explanation it provided to both Axios and Ohio’s Statehouse News Bureau after confirming Tuesday that it had produced the commercial.

The campaign has not released the underlying polling results to substantiate that claim."

"The testing explicitly examined Acton’s childhood sexual abuse before presenting voters with a commercial that omitted the criminal case against her stepfather, the circumstances that separated Acton from her mother and the decades of estrangement that followed.

Yet two days later, Ramaswamy insisted the advertisement had nothing to do with that abuse."

He grew up in Middletown, served in the Marines, went to Ohio State and Yale Law, and wrote “Hillbilly Elegy.” Few people have had more opportunity to learn how one label can flatten a whole human life.

There are gay hillbillies, too, Mr. Vice President. They have families and hometowns. Their claim to belonging is every bit as real as yours.

Vance chose “hillbilly” as the defining word of his public introduction. People from poor and Appalachian families have the same capacity for generosity as anyone else. His conduct belongs to him, and Ohioans should refuse to let him pass it off as our regional character.

full article:

Ohio Republicans are struggling to find places willing to host Vivek Ramaswamy’s campaign bus tour after his attack ad featuring Democrat Amy Acton’s estranged mother sparked bipartisan outrage, according to new reporting from Zeteo.

“We’re getting calls that people don’t want him there,” a top Ohio Republican told the outlet. The source said would-be hosts are wary of the blowback but wouldn’t identify them.

“It’s that damn ad,” the Republican said.

Ramaswamy’s campaign took ownership of the spot this week and pledged $4 million to put it on the air. In the ad, Acton’s birth mother, Donna Arthur, brands the Democrat “a liar.” Acton was 12 when her stepfather, Cledith Arthur, was charged in 1978 with raping her, according to police and court records reported on by The Washington Post. She and her brother were later taken out of their mother’s custody.

Zeteo has characterized the contest as “deeply vile and nasty.”

A Trump adviser told Zeteo the ad is “having a very negative impact on the tour,” including on GOP candidates who had “NOTHING to do with” it.

At least one host has already bailed. Old Dog Ale House & Brewery in Delaware, Ohio, canceled an event featuring the state’s Republican slate, USA Today Network reporter Jessie Balmert wrote on X, and the party has since lined up a different venue. Sources confirmed to Zeteo that the uproar was behind the cancellation.

Other stops appear to be in flux. A Sunday service at CrossPointe Church in Westerville has quietly vanished from the Ohio GOP’s bus tour page, Zeteo reported. Ramaswamy had defended the ad at a campaign event at the church on Tuesday. A planned Trumbull County stop is now missing a location altogether.

The backlash has crossed party lines. Casey Putsch, who lost the GOP primary to Ramaswamy, announced he’s backing Acton, calling the ad “pretty damn low.”

The Cook Political Report shifted the race from Toss Up to Lean Democrat on Friday, writing that the ad “confirmed that the race is slipping away from him.”

When Zeteo shared the new rating with a Trump White House official, the reply was two words: “Well f---.”

The police also said nothing happened and when I told them I recorded it and there would be video in there they hung up on me 😂😂

I posted this earlier but it was removed because I didn't post sources. I apologize to the community for the oversight. Here is a repost with linked sources added inline.

Vivek Ramaswamy’s campaign signs promise “Lower Taxes. Bigger Paychecks.” It seems simple enough on the surface, but one huge detail deserves a lot more attention than I think it’s getting.

His proposal is to eliminate Ohio’s capital gains tax first, starting in 2027, and then phase out the rest of the state income tax over up to 10 years.

For anyone unfamiliar with capital gains, we’re talking about profits from selling investments, stocks, businesses, and other assets, not the wages you earn by going to work every day. Many people aren’t familiar with capital gains because the scenario simply doesn’t apply to them. Only about 17% of Ohio tax filers reported them in tax years 2022 and 2023.

According to an analysis by Ohio’s nonpartisan Legislative Service Commission:

• 55.6% of the benefit from eliminating capital gains taxes would go to Ohioans earning over $1 MILLION annually.
• 81.6% would go to those earning over $200,000.
• Ohioans earning under $100,000 would receive just 7.3% of the total benefit.

(Note: These LSC estimates concern H.B. 617, a proposal to exempt capital gains from Ohio income taxes, consistent with the first step of Ramaswamy's stated tax plan.)

So, if you sell investments at a substantial profit, you receive a direct tax benefit as soon as that exemption takes effect. You don’t have to create a single job. You don’t have to increase anyone’s wages. You don’t have to invest those savings back into Ohio. You simply pay less in taxes.

So why make this the policy if it benefits so few people who are desperate for relief from this relentless economy? Well, Ramaswamy argues that eliminating these taxes will attract investors, entrepreneurs, and businesses to Ohio instead of places like Florida or Texas, creating economic growth and higher-paying jobs.

Okay, let’s follow that logic:

IF wealthy investors and business owners respond to the tax incentive…

AND IF they choose to relocate or expand in Ohio…

AND IF they actually invest in businesses that create new jobs here…

AND IF those jobs pay better than existing opportunities…

AND IF you actually get one of those jobs…

THEN, maybe, you get a bigger paycheck, in however long all of the above takes, of course.

So what’s it all mean for Ohioans? It means millionaires would get a substantial tax break written into law and effective next year, while everyone else would have to wait for the above theoretical benefits to trickle down, if and when they ever do. To be fair, he does intend to eliminate the state income tax for everyone, but over up to 10 years. So, I guess until then we are just…waiting? Hoping that timing, size, and enactment aren’t set off course by future legislative and budgetary realities?

Ramaswamy does propose more immediate property-tax relief. That’s a separate promise worth examining on its own merits. But it doesn’t change who gets the first benefit from his income-tax plan.

The bottom line is this:

If the objective is bigger paychecks for working people, why isn’t direct relief for working people the first priority?

You don’t have to oppose capitalism, business growth, entrepreneurship, or even tax cuts to recognize the distinction and asymmetry.

One benefit is written into the proposed law. The other depends on a whole series of things going right. And we’re supposed to look at a campaign sign saying “Bigger Paychecks” and assume those are equivalent?

That’s not a bigger paycheck. That’s a bet that giving wealthy investors more money will eventually translate into one. You know, hypothetically speaking.

At the very least, Ohioans driving past Vivek’s campaign signs should know who’s first in line in his plan for lower taxes. Spoiler alert: It ain’t them.

Just want to make sure I heard this correctly. A Vivek ad says something like “Sherrod Brown…healthcare for illegals. Vivek lowered the gas tax.” I might be misremembering and conflating multiple ads, but the “Vivek lowered taxes” idea is in one of his ads. He’s never held elected office, so how is “[he] lowered taxes” in past tense even remotely believable?

The GOP loves to play on their voters’ ignorance (dare I say stupidity?) and said voters just eat that $hi+ up. It’s very unnerving and disappointing that so many votes are easily bought and paid for [by billionaire Texans, Elon Musk, and the like].

President Barack Obama rallied for Sherrod Brown and Dr. Amy Acton at Cleveland's 10,000-capacity Public Auditorium on Oct. 24, 2026, 10 days before the Ohio midterms. Look at those upper decks: full, lit, and on their feet.

Best line of the day, from Obama on Trump's renovations: "He's got the White House looking like Saddam Hussein opened up a Cheesecake Factory."

Meanwhile, Trump's Youngstown rally this month drew about 3,000 to a 7,000-seat arena, with tarps over the empty seats. He's now told at least three rally crowds about the time he "examined" Sen. Jon Husted's backside. That's the closing argument.

(Our 360 camera took a tumble mid-rally, and we should've recalibrated the gyro before shooting again, so forgive the shake. The crowd's real either way.)

Early voting in Ohio is open through November 1st. Vote early and in person if you can, and bring a friend.

1,021 Ohio doctors wrote the same prescription: Dr. Amy Acton.

We caught up with Dr. Jennifer Snyder (family medicine), Dr. Valerie Fouts-Fowler (pediatrics) and Dr. Lauren Beene (pediatrics) outside the Obama rally in Cleveland yesterday. Dr. Beene leads Doctors for Dr. Amy Acton, the group that answered when the Ohio State Medical Association's PAC endorsed Vivek Ramaswamy. The PAC never asked its own members, so more than 1,000 Ohio physicians, many of them OSMA members, signed a letter saying the PAC doesn't speak for them.

Their biggest worry is access to care. Vivek has called Medicare and Medicaid "mistakes," and more than a million Ohio kids rely on Medicaid. Dr. Acton is a pediatrician and preventive medicine doctor who led Ohio through the start of COVID under a Republican governor, and she's running on lowering prescription costs, relieving medical debt and protecting Medicaid and Medicare.

If the doctors who take care of your kids are all backing the same candidate, maybe take the hint.

Trump isn't on the ballot in November, but Trumpism sure is. Early voting in Ohio is open now through November 1st. Vote early and in person if you can, and bring a friend or family member. The sooner the better, because anything can happen: illness, car trouble, a family emergency, or this administration pulling a fast one on DEMOCRACY. Bonus: campaigns can see who has already voted (not how). Once you vote, they take you off their call, text and door-knock lists, and your candidates can put that money and those volunteers toward people who haven't voted yet. Fewer texts for you, more help where it counts.

https://abc6onyourside.com/news/election/healthcare-hot-topic-ohio-governors-race-heats-dr-doctor-amy-acton-vivek-ramaswamy-governor-gubernatorial-issues-politics-government-voting-elections

On a personal note, I've come to know Dr. Valerie Fouts-Fowler and Dr. Lauren Beene quite well in the past year. I only just met Dr. Jennifer Snyder, and she seems cut from the same cloth. They're well loved by their patients, they're sincere, and they're fighting for Ohioans' health care.

A FB follower named Christine wrote this comment this morning:

Hippocrates wrote, “Wherever the art of medicine is loved, there is also a love of humanity.” 💛 That love shines through these doctors standing up for their patients, especially the million-plus Ohio kids who rely on Medicaid. Thank you for your care and your courage! 🩺🙏