Karen Kassler reports on Ohio's pivotal 2025 primary, highlighting Vivek Ramaswamy's $80 million war chest against Amy Acton amidst racist opposition from Casey Putsch. The high-stakes Senate race between John Houston and Sherrod Brown threatens to become the state's most expensive election due to dark money influxes. While Republicans maintain dominance since 1994, Democrats view this cycle as a critical opportunity to reclaim ground, even as early absentee voting surges ahead of historical norms. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
Source
Time
Text
Ohio Senate Race Polling00:09:17
Exploring the stories, sights, and spirit that make up America.
Join us for remarkable coast-to-coast coverage, featuring key events from our past that make possible the unlimited opportunities of our future.
Celebrating our nation's journey like no other network can.
America 250, over a year of historic moments.
C-SPAN, official media partner of America 250.
C-SPAN is brought to you by the cable, satellite, and streaming companies that provide C-SPAN as a public service.
Before traveling to Iowa, Vice President JD Vance stopped in his home state of Ohio to cast his primary ballots.
The vice president posted this shortly afterwards.
Great to be in Cincinnati this morning to vote for Vivek Ramaswamy for governor, Jay Edwards for state treasurer, and Eric Conroy for Congress in Ohio's first district.
I hope you'll do the same, Ohio.
And join us tonight for special primary election coverage.
We'll be live starting at 7 p.m. Eastern with results from Ohio, Indiana, and other states.
We'll talk to local reporters covering the races and take your phone calls.
Again, that's live at 7 p.m. Eastern on C-SPAN.
And joining us to talk about the Ohio primary and what to consider there, Karen Cassler of State House News Bureau.
She's their bureau chief.
Good morning, Ms. Cassler.
Thanks for giving us your time.
Good morning.
If people are not in Ohio and they're looking towards the state, what are they looking at?
What takes place today?
Well, there are two major races here that are happening on the primary.
And of course, these are the ones that will predict what will happen in the general election.
We've got a race for governor, the first time that that seat has been opened since 2018 with Republican Governor Mike DeWine, term limited out.
And so we also have a U.S. Senate race going on where you have a rare situation, a former U.S. Senator who actually lost his seat in Sherrod Brown, the Democrat, trying to regain his seat and defeat an incumbent Republican who was just appointed to that position two years ago.
That's U.S. Senator John Houston.
So this is an interesting combination here because on the governor's side, we have two potential candidates in Vivek Ramaswamy, who is the leading frontrunner for the Republicans, and Democrat Amy Acton, who's the only candidate for the Democrats going at it this fall, who neither one of them have held elected office before.
Neither one of them have appeared on the ballot.
Whereas in the Senate race, you have two candidates who are very experienced at government, though one may have a little bit more name recognition than the other.
When it comes to that governor's race, talk a little bit then about Ohio and how it's politically made up and who does it favor at this stage.
Well, Ohio has been dominated by Republicans since the 90s.
I mean, since 1994, 82% of statewide races have been won by Republicans.
Donald Trump won by eight points in 2016 and 2020, won by 11 points in 2024.
So obviously, Republicans have had the edge here.
But there are certainly some indications that Democrats are gaining strength here.
And that could bring potentially the first Democratic governor in Ohio since in several years.
And again, the idea that this is two unknown candidates in Vivek Ramaswamy, who a lot of people might remember him from the Department of Government Efficiency.
He was appointed with Elon Musk and actually left before he could really do anything on that so he could run for Ohio governor.
And he does have some opponents in this election, but he has he's raised $50 million.
He said that he's going to spend $30 million of his own money.
So he seems likely to be the one that will move on.
And then again, Amy Acton, who was Governor Mike DeWine's Ohio Department of Health director and got a lot of praise at the beginning of the pandemic.
But then Republicans started pushing back on her for closing on essential businesses, closing schools.
Now they've been running a campaign against her already, calling her Dr. Lockdown, which is interesting because Ramaswamy also has some COVID connections as well with some of the things that his biotech company did.
What's the main message that both Mr. Waramaswamy and Ms. Acton are delivering at this stage?
I think both candidates are talking about affordability, and that's the issue that we keep hearing about, but they have very different ideas of how to resolve it.
Ramaswamy's talked a lot about cutting the state income tax, in fact, eliminating it, and cutting property taxes, rolling them back to pre-COVID levels.
But he hasn't been very specific on how he would pay for that.
Acton's talked about tax cuts for working families, subsidies for child care, also taking on medical debt.
But she's also said very little about how she would pay for it.
So we're hearing a lot about that and the whole question about affordability and whether the economy is really as bad as people are perceiving it to be.
That's kind of Ramaswamy's view.
Whereas Acton has done a lot more in the area of people are suffering.
We need to do something.
You talked about the Senate race.
You talked about Sherrod Brown, who previously served.
Give us more context of where he stands this day and who's challenging him.
Well, John Houston is the former lieutenant governor who was appointed to JD Vance's old seat when Vance became vice president.
That was in 2020, early 2025.
And so Houston's now running for the first time for that seat.
Sherrod Brown, again, wants to become one of the few senators who's lost a seat and hopes to regain it.
And Sherrod Brown's entry into this race got a lot of attention.
He had been talking with minority leader Chuck Schumer about getting into this race or potentially running for governor.
He ended up in the Senate race.
And this really sets up possibly, well, I don't think there's any possibility about this.
It's going to be the most expensive U.S. Senate race in Ohio history because the last two, 2022 and 2024, have been the most expensive U.S. Senate races in Ohio history.
So last time, about half a billion dollars was spent between Bernie Marino, the Republican who won, and Sherrod Brown.
And this time, it's going to be at least that.
You've got a lot of outside interests that are interested in this race, a lot of dark money coming in, as well as the candidates very skilled at raising money themselves.
We've been talking to our viewers before we had you on about which party should control Congress.
Is this a bellwether of sorts within the state and taking a look at the whole come November?
Well, Ohio definitely used to be a bellwether, but we kind of lost that status with Trump's victories in 2016, 2020, and 2024.
But I think Democrats are really seeing this as an opportunity here to gain back some of what they lost.
I mean, Sherrod Brown has actually done well in previous years when he was against Republicans and even when Trump was in office the first time.
So Democrats are really hopeful here.
I don't think there's been a whole lot of reliable polling because Ohio has been so solidly Republican.
A lot of major national polling entities have kind of ignored Ohio.
But I think we're going to see a lot more polling in Ohio that indicates where people really do stand when it comes to do they want to keep Republican status quo or do they want to give the Democrats a chance.
What does the history in Ohio at this midterm election stage, this type of race, when it comes to turnout, what does it tell you about what to expect today?
Well, Ohio has had a month of early, no excuse absentee voting, and we've had about 358,000 ballots that have been returned, which is running way ahead of the last time that there was a race for governor in 2022, and then way ahead even more of the last time we had an open race for governor in 2018.
I think because there is this Republican contest, that may be the one that could be driving people because I think the Senate race is largely set.
I mean, Jared Brown does have an opponent, but once again, it seems very likely that he is going to be the one that's going to move on.
In the Republican race, you have Vivek Ramaswamy facing Casey Putsch, who is an automotive designer who has talked about abolishing property taxes in Ohio and really gone after the Vaikramaswami's Indian heritage and also after his Hindu faith, saying that he is the white Christian candidate.
That seems to have gotten a lot of interest and certainly a lot of ugly and very racist things on social media.
This is Karen Kessler, who reports for State House News Bureau.
She's the bureaucrat chief with Ohio Public Media, talking about today's primary in Ohio, giving us the lay of the land there.
Ms. Kassler, thanks so much for the breakdown.
Really appreciate it.
Great to talk to you.
On C-SPAN tonight, highlights from Trump administration officials.
At 8:30 Eastern, a briefing from Defense Secretary Pete Hegset and the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Dan Kaine, on the latest in the U.S.-Iran conflict.
And later, we'll hear from Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who stepped in to host the White House press briefing as Press Secretary Caroline Levitt begins maternity leave.
Finally, we'll see some of Vice President JD Vance's travel.
He stopped in Ohio to vote in tonight's primary elections and later spoke at a manufacturing facility in Iowa with Republican Congressman Zach Nunn.
Campaign 2026 Live Coverage00:00:41
That's all later tonight on C-SPAN.
Now, we begin our live coverage of tonight's primaries in Ohio and Indiana, featuring expert analysis and your calls.
Tonight on C-SPAN, Campaign 2026 coverage continues.
Our ongoing look at this year's races for the U.S. House and Senate that could tip the balance of power in November.
Live campaign 2026 coverage on C-SPAN starts now.
Good evening from the nation's capital and welcome to primary night on C-SPAN with a live look at the nation's capital.