CIRCLEVILLE, Ohio — Cheese curds, “elephant ears,” and “taco in a bag” were all on sale at the Circleville Pumpkin Show. Flanking the food trucks were carnival rides, admission as low as $2 a pop. Pumpkins and gourds of all shapes and sizes — the largest weighing well over a ton — were also up for grabs.
Just a few short blocks from the festivities — beyond the sounds of shrieking children and scent of pumpkin spice — Vivek Ramaswamy pitched himself to a captive audience.
Perched atop the back porch of a baby blue house, the Republican gubernatorial candidate on Friday vowed “to make Ohio the most conservative state we’ve ever been, to make Ohio the state that is the envy and ambition of Texas and Florida.” Cheers and whistles erupted from the crowd of about 150 people rallying for the state’s midterm GOP ticket.
But just outside the friendly confines of the yard, several protesters held handwritten signs attached to sticks long enough to peek out over the top of the fence. They denounced Ramaswamy’s most recent ad, which has landed him in hot water.
“Dear Vivek,” one sign read, “so we are clear, child rape is not OK. #OhioDeservesBetter.”
The ad in question — which has drawn widespread and bipartisan condemnation — features Donna Arthur, the estranged mother of Ramaswamy’s opponent, Democrat Amy Acton, accusing her daughter of being a liar who can’t be trusted.
The commercial prompted swift backlash because of its unspoken backstory: Acton was removed from her mother’s custody at age 12 after accusing her stepfather of sexual abuse. Despite warrants for his arrest, he was never criminally charged since the case wasn’t brought to trial before his death. Acton went to live with her biological father. She has had no further contact with her mother.
Like the protesters demonstrating outside the rally, the ad and its fallout have threatened to overshadow a race for control of a state that has been solidly red in recent elections. What on paper could have been an easy win for the Republican is now a toss-up, and it’s the latest example of Ramaswamy’s national baggage spilling over into the statewide race.
“If you’re Vivek Ramaswamy, you’re probably not running that ad if you feel like you’re in a good place,” said Robert Alexander, a political science professor at Ohio’s Bowling Green State University, who has conducted extensive polling on the race. “If you’re Amy Acton, it can be a big gift. It’s an absolute family trauma that your opponent is trying to benefit off of. And now you get to tell your own origin story, which — regardless of what your political preferences are — conveys a person who has overcome quite a bit in their life to accomplish quite a bit.”
Indeed, at a rally in Cleveland Saturday that featured Barack Obama and Democratic Senate candidate Sherrod Brown, Acton received some of the loudest cheers of the afternoon when she addressed her background.
“Hope is a very powerful thing,” she said. “It’s what got me through living in a cold, dark basement when I wasn’t sure where my next meal was coming from. Hope is what got me through sexual abuse, living through cold nights where all I could think about was how to keep my brother safe and warm. ... Hope is what made me dedicate my career, my entire career, to keeping Ohioans safe and well. And hope, guys, is what drives this campaign.”
If you’re familiar with Ramaswamy’s political ascent, his willingness to run this type of ad is unsurprising. Abrasiveness has always been part of Ramaswamy’s brand. He first made a name for himself in conservative circles as an intense critic of identity politics and a skeptic of racism. His debut presidential campaign ad in 2023 ripped “wokeness, gender ideology, and the climate cult.”
Though that bid was short-lived, it turned Ramaswamy into a national political figure. New Englanders especially saw a lot of Ramaswamy on the campaign trail when he embarked on a sweeping tour of New Hampshire, making public appearances across all 10 counties in half as many days.
Back then, Ramaswamy firmly positioned himself as a political outsider. Now, as he campaigns to be Ohio governor, he’s an insider at a time when the status quo is extremely unpopular.
Following his stint as a Trump 2024 campaign surrogate, Ramaswamy was assigned to co-lead the now-infamous Department of Government Efficiency with Elon Musk. It was a major vote of confidence from Trump in Ramaswamy, a rising star in the party who was one of the few Republican presidential hopefuls who refused to criticize Trump while campaigning. Ramaswamy often called Trump the best president of the 21st century.
But just as Trump reclaimed the White House, Ramaswamy was ousted from DOGE. Officially, his departure was chalked up to his desire to run for governor of Ohio. However, repeated clashes with Musk and other Trump administration officials were also reportedly behind his ouster.
Ramaswamy sailed through the Ohio GOP’s primary for governor, buoyed by an early endorsement from the president and his friendship with JD Vance, dating back to their time as Yale Law classmates.
But just two years later, those relationships may be more of a liability than an advantage.
Most polls now show Trump’s approval rating underwater in Ohio, a state he won easily two years ago by 11 points, the widest presidential victory margin in the state since Ronald Reagan.
Still, Trump and Vance haven’t shied away, visiting four times to campaign for Ohio Republicans this election cycle. The president is even slated to appear once more in Ohio on Wednesday.
It reflects the reality that, with a certain segment of the Ohio electorate, Trump remains golden.
Lisa Hopkins, a 63-year-old resident of Circleville who attended the Ohio GOP rally in her hometown, said “President Trump is my hero.” She recalled first becoming aware of Ramaswamy during his presidential campaign because he, too, was a staunch supporter of Trump.
For others, like Tom Ellis of Columbus, an 80-year-old who works in insurance, the choice is even simpler. “I want to vote Republican because I don’t trust the Democrats,” he said.
Circleville is a largely Republican exurb of Columbus. The town of about 14,000 people prides itself on hosting the “Greatest Free Show on Earth,” the Circleville Pumpkin Show, each October.
There was a noticeable lack of MAGA gear on display at the event on a recent Friday afternoon, although one man sported an Ohio State-red T-shirt that remixed Trump’s slogan. It read “Make Michigan Our Bichigan,” a nod to the heated football rivalry between the two state universities.
Still, even as his own polling data show Acton with a 6-point lead over Ramaswamy, Alexander, the Bowling Green professor, warns not to count out the GOP candidate.
“If you look historically, in the last few elections in Ohio, Republicans have indeed over-performed the polls, and I think that they’ve closed well,” he said. “What you have seen is a lot of Republican [voters] hold their noses and ultimately come home.”
Julian E.J. Sorapuru can be reached at julian.sorapuru@globe.com. Follow him on X @JulianSorapuru.