Democrat Amy Acton defeats Vivek Ramaswamy in Ohio governor’s race

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Dr. Amy Acton delivered an upset victory in the race for Ohio governor on Tuesday, overcoming more than $100 million spent against her to become the first Democrat to win the seat in 20 years and the first woman ever elected to the state’s top post.

The public health physician and former COVID-19-era state health director defeated Trump-backed Republican Vivek Ramaswamy, a biotech billionaire and 2024 presidential candidate. She campaigned relentlessly on affordability and better access to healthcare, appealing to working- and middle-class voters by emphasizing her hardscrabble roots as an Ohio native who spent part of her childhood homeless and, for one winter, living out of a tent.

As she took the stage for her victory speech, Acton was greeted by the shrieks of joy, shouts and chants of “Amy! Amy! Amy!”

She repeated her campaign pledge to turn down the temperature on Ohio politics and to never ignore anyone as governor, whether they voted for her or not.

“The healing begins today," she said.

She also alluded to the difficult final few weeks of the campaign, during which Ramaswamy aired a controversial attack ad featuring her estranged mother and thanked all those who had expressed support.

The spot sparked national bipartisan backlash on grounds that Acton’s mother had lost custody of her children decades ago after her husband, their stepfather, was indicted for raping Acton as a child.

Acton’s victory was a huge win for a party that had slipped out of power in the former swing state, one that Democrats had all but written off as voters shifted toward Republicans during the Trump era.

Acton, 60, succeeds GOP Gov. Mike DeWine, whom she served alongside during the early months of the pandemic. But she enters office without elective experience, a stark contrast with her 79-year-old former boss, who is term-limited and likely retiring from elective politics after 50 years.

Acton’s victory came despite massive spending by Ramaswamy and his Republican allies. Elon Musk, for example, injected at least $5 million into a Ramaswamy-aligned political action committee.

She also won even after President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance, an Ohio native, made repeated trips to the state in the campaign’s final weeks to rally for Ramaswamy and Republican Sen. Jon Husted, who also lost his bid Tuesday to retain Vance’s former seat.

Acton’s campaign was able to capitalize on Ramaswamy’s wealth to paint him as out of touch with average voters whose pocketbooks have been hit by Trump’s tariffs, the rising cost of living, and soaring fuel prices brought on by the war in Iran.

Ramaswamy said Tuesday that he hoped to continue to contribute to the future prosperity of Ohioans, but that he views the future with both hope and reservations.

“I have to tell you I have some serious concerns about the future direction of our country. There’s no avoiding that,” he told supporters at a subdued watch party. “But I do believe that there have been many ups and downs in the history of our country and we have, in the end, still found our way upward.”

Ohio Republicans, energized by Ramaswamy’s high profile, wealth and proximity to Trump, unified around his candidacy early on. His path was facilitated by DeWine, who appointed his lieutenant governor, Husted, then the leading Republican contender for governor, to the Senate. The party’s decision to endorse a newcomer to Ohio politics left a number of veteran Republican politicians — including the attorney general and state treasurer — scrambling to adjust their own plans. And it wasn’t long before the move prompted some anxiety within the party.

Ramaswamy’s earliest headwinds came in the Republican primary, when fierce critic Casey “The Car Guy” Putsch, a vehicle designer and YouTube provocateur, seemed to catch hold with a portion of the party’s working-class base. Putsch also directed veiled ethnic and religious attacks at Ramaswamy, who is Hindu. In the end, Putsch’s $130,000 campaign attracted nearly 18% of the Republican vote. As the general election neared, Putsch announced he planned to vote for Acton.

Acton was one of the out-of-power Ohio Democrats’ most recognizable figures, after spending months during the early days of the pandemic on statewide broadcasts alongside DeWine and Husted. Ramaswamy and his allies had tried to turn that against her, arguing that she harmed Ohio by being too aggressive in shutting down schools and businesses. The governor ultimately defended Acton, his former Cabinet member, saying the buck stopped with him — though his endorsement stood with Ramaswamy throughout the campaign, even after the ad featuring Acton’s mother.

Initially leaked online, the 60-second spot featuring Acton’s mother was quickly claimed by Ramaswamy, who defended it as a fair criticism of a pattern of deception by Acton that was being inaccurately spun by Democrats and the media as questioning whether she was abused as a child.

The ad featured Acton’s mother, Donna Arthur, calling her daughter “a liar” with a “serious problem” with being honest about her past. She urged Ohioans not to vote for Acton. But Arthur had been estranged from Acton for nearly 50 years. She lost custody of her children after her husband, the children’s stepfather, was indicted for raping Acton as a child, pleaded not guilty and then fled the state before he could be tried.

Both Vance and Trump defended Ramaswamy’s use of the ad. The president even expressed jealousy that he’d never had the opportunity to run such an attack against a political rival.

But others, including five Ohio governors and other top politicians of both parties, women’s groups and several hundred alumni of Ramaswamy’s Catholic high school in Cincinnati, denounced the ad as gutter politics and called for Ramaswamy to take it down. The campaign took it off the air about a week before the election, having spent about a quarter of the $4 million ad buy Ramaswamy had announced.

Ohio Democratic gubernatorial candidate Dr. Amy Acton raises her arms during an election night event Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2026, in Columbus, Ohio. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

Ohio Democratic gubernatorial candidate Dr. Amy Acton speaks to media outside her polling place on the Capitol University campus after voting in Columbus, Ohio, Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

Ohio Republican gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy speaks alongside his wife, Dr. Apoorva Ramaswamy, left, during an election night event Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2026, in Columbus, Ohio. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)

Ohio Democratic gubernatorial candidate Dr. Amy Acton waves during an election night event Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2026, in Columbus, Ohio. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

Ohio Democratic gubernatorial candidate Dr. Amy Acton raises her arms during an election night event Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2026, in Columbus, Ohio. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

Ohio Democratic gubernatorial candidate Dr. Amy Acton raises her arms while speaking during an election night event Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2026, in Columbus, Ohio. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

Former President Barack Obama, left, greets Democratic Ohio gubernatorial candidate Amy Acton, right, at a campaign rally Saturday, Oct. 24, 2026, in Cleveland. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)

President Donald Trump greets Republican gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy at a campaign rally at the Shoemaker Center at Ohio University Chillicothe in Chillicothe, Ohio, Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

Amy Acton, Democratic candidate for governor of Ohio, speaks at a campaign rally in Cleveland, Saturday, Oct. 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)

Republican gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy speaks before President Donald Trump at a campaign rally at the Shoemaker Center at Ohio University Chillicothe in Chillicothe, Ohio, Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Jon Cherry)

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — South Africans voted Wednesday in local elections that are an evaluation of the once-mighty African National Congress party, which led the country out of white minority rule but has seen a consistent decline in support over the last decade.

The elections will decide who leads South Africa's eight main city municipalities as well as 44 district and 205 local councils.

A key battleground is the largest city and economic hub of Johannesburg. It's often been called Africa's richest city, but its problems with water, electricity supplies and other public services have underlined the frustrations of millions of South Africans with local government failures.

Johannesburg has changed its mayor five times in four years since the last local elections. It is currently governed by a fragile ANC-led coalition but is a target for South Africa's second biggest party, the Democratic Alliance.

The DA has put forward its former national leader, 75-year-old Helen Zille, for mayor of Johannesburg.

She has embarked on a series of publicity stunts meant to highlight the failures of the ANC and other parties to properly run Johannesburg, including snorkeling in a water-filled trench in the middle of a road and rowing an inflatable boat through a pond created by a water leak in another part of the city of around 5 million people.

Voters do not directly elect mayors but choose members of the councils that run cities and choose the mayors. Small parties often play kingmaker roles in local government coalitions.

In the last local elections in 2021, the ANC won less than 50% of the vote for the first time since the apartheid system of white minority rule ended in 1994.

The ANC then lost its 30-year parliamentary majority in national elections in 2024 — a seismic shift for Africa's biggest economy — and entered into a national coalition with the DA and other parties, though ANC leader Cyril Ramaphosa was reelected president of South Africa.

But while the parties are partners in a national unity government, they are fierce rivals in the local elections. Zille's quest to be mayor of Johannesburg will test if the DA can win ground away from its traditional support base in the second biggest city of Cape Town.

These elections will also be the first local vote contested by the MK Party that is led by former South African President Jacob Zuma. Zuma resigned as president because of corruption allegations in 2018 and was expelled from the ANC in 2024 for starting his new party.

It made a surprisingly strong debut in the 2024 national elections to become the third biggest party in Parliament and has strong support in Zuma's home province of KwaZulu-Natal in the east of the country.

Inadequate public services — and especially failed water supplies — are a key election issue across the country. Others are corruption and high rates of unemployment, while there has also been a national reckoning over immigration.

Groups protesting against illegal immigration have drawn support and attention across the country of 62 million people in recent months and have criticized Ramaphosa and his government. Some parties have made opposition to undocumented migration a central part of their local election campaigns.

AP Africa news: https://apnews.com/hub/africa

A man is pulling a rubbish bin next to a pile of rubbish along the street in Alexandra township, on the outskirt of Johannesburg, South Africa, Saturday, Oct. 31, 2026. (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe)

A man searches for recyclable materials in a large rubbish container in Alexandra township, on the outskirt of Johannesburg, South Africa, Saturday, Oct. 31, 2026. (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe)

FILE - South African President Cyril Ramaphosa address the media with EU leaders in Johannesburg, South Africa, Thursday, Nov. 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe, file)

A Democratic Alliance (DA) mayoral candidate Helen Zille is seen on election billboard in Alexandra township, on the outskirt of Johannesburg, South Africa, Saturday, Oct. 31, 2026. (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe)

Election posters hang on a street lamp post in Alexandra township, on the outskirt of Johannesburg, South Africa, Saturday, Oct. 31, 2026. (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe)