Acton and Ramaswamy close on costs: taxes, gas and data centers

Ohio will elect its first new governor in eight years on Nov. 3, with Republican Mike DeWine term-limited after two terms. Neither nominee has held elected office. ^[2][3]

Democrat Amy Acton, DeWine's former state health director, is closing with a web ad about growing up poor in Youngstown. She promises lower costs, a tax cut for working families, cheaper prescription drugs, help with medical debt and a requirement that data centers pay their full share of power costs. She met small-business owners in Bexley on Oct. 6. ^[1]

Republican Vivek Ramaswamy, a Cincinnati-area entrepreneur, pitches himself as a businessman rather than a bureaucrat. He wants to phase out the state income tax and the capital gains tax, and he points to the 90-day fuel tax suspension that his running mate, Senate President Rob McColley, helped pass. He appeared with President Donald Trump in Vandalia on Oct. 3. ^[1]

Both candidates back property tax relief, limits on data centers and a gas tax break, NPR reported in a piece from the Statehouse News Bureau. Republicans have attacked Acton over her role in the 2020 pandemic shutdowns and revived a 2019 police report from her home, which she calls an ordinary marital argument. Democratic-aligned ads have criticized Ramaswamy's investments in Alzheimer's drugs; he calls the ads defamatory. ^[2]