Democrats Win Ohio Governor’s Race as Vivek Ramaswamy Blows It Again

Democrat Amy Acton defeated Republican Vivek Ramaswamy in Ohio’s gubernatorial election Tuesday and will become the first Democratic governor in the state in 15 years. Ramaswamy, a pharmaceutical executive who previously ran for president in 2024, lost by about 4 percent in a state that voted for President Trump in the past three presidential elections with increasing margins. After he easily won the Republican primary in May, Ramaswamy made a series of missteps in his general election campaign. These included getting booed off the stage at a libertarian student group’s national convention in Cleveland in July, posting (and then deleting) a widely-mocked video of himself at a batting cage, nearly dropping a 10-year-old boy he inexplicably picked up at a rally last month, and deciding to feature a convicted sex offender in an October campaign ad.But Ramaswamy’s most egregious error was enlisting Acton’s estranged mother Donna Arthur in a campaign ad calling the Democrat a liar just weeks ago. Arthur stayed with her husband, Cledith Arthur, after he sexually abused 12-year-old Acton, and even after he was tried and convicted, leading to their estrangement. As the ad brought widespread backlash from Democrats and Republicans, Ramaswamy doubled down, with Vice President JD Vance and Trump coming to his defense. That proved to sink Ramaswamy’s chances and deliver victory to Acton, a doctor and former director of the Ohio Department of Health, in a state where Democrats have been losing ground for more than a decade. Now, the state will be closely watched to see if Democrats can flip it again in two years when Ohio native Vance will likely be running for president. The blue wave is here, and Republicans aren’t taking it very well. As Democrats began notching huge midterm victories on Tuesday, including winning back control of the House of Representatives and securing key victories in races across the nation, Republicans saw the writing on the wall. . Politico reported that senior Republican Party members are particularly worried about Florida, where Republican Ashley Moody won the Senate race against democratic socialist Angie Nixon by just three percentage points. “Florida is bad. Real bad,” one strategist said. “A socialist is on track to win Miami-Dade County, where most of the voters fled literal socialism and still refused to vote for Republicans. If that doesn’t tell you how big of a colossal fuck up the first two years of Trump 2.0 was I don’t know what will,” said another. “It’s a ruby-red state. If we have problems there, we have real issues,” an adviser said. MAGA commentators also spent Tuesday night publicly lamenting their party’s poor initial midterm showings, which indicate a rejection of President Trump’s larger political movement in general. “This isn’t a blue tsunami. This is a blue great mud flood,” wrote right-wing podcaster Tim Pool. “Shit. Its almost like the GOP campaigned on nothing and deserve to get blown out. Fucking insane.” “Tonight should be a wake-up call. The next two years cannot be more speeches, more promises, and more excuses for why nothing gets done,” former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn wrote on Truth Social. “People are tired of voting for change and then being told to wait until the next election. If we put you in office, we expect you to do the job. Tell us what you’ve accomplished, where you’ve fallen short, and what you’re doing about it. Having an R next to your name does not get you a pass.... The next two years need to be about accountability. We cannot afford to be having this same conversation in 2028.” James Talarico has officially turned Texas blue for the first time in 33 years. Talarico beat embattled former Republican state Attorney General Ken Paxton 58–40 with 68 percent of the vote counted, the Decision Desk HQ reported.Talarico thus wins a state that President Trump won by 56 percent just two years ago. The Presbyterian former House member ran on a progressive populist platform consisting of affordability, economic inequality, political corruption, and healthcare reform. Paxton did just about everything he could to lose this race. From his indictment and suspension to his alleged affair and subsequent divorce, his misuse of taxpayer funds for vacations, to his controversial, leak-filled Senate campaign, Trump could not have picked a more vulnerable candidate to loosen the GOP’s grip on the Lone Star state. South Carolinian voters weren’t in the mood for groundless nepotism this election season.Acting South Carolina Senator Darline Graham, the younger sister of the late Lindsey Graham, lost to Democrat Annie Andrews Tuesday.Andrews beat Graham 51.1–47 percent, Decision Desk HQ projected. The junior Graham took the reins of her sibling’s powerful office in July, days after the 71-year-old suddenly passed away from an aortic dissection. Despite having zero relevant experience or qualifications, Graham gained the president’s endorsement and was subsequently appointed by South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster. She then defied Republican strategists by throwing her hat in the GOP primary the following month, besting Representative Ralph Norman, a five-term lawmaker who has represented the Palmetto State in various legislative capacities since 2005.But voters were apparently unimpressed by Graham’s four-month tenure in office. At the onset, Graham promised to follow in her brother’s footsteps, aligning herself with the MAGA movement and its various policy points. But her ignorance quickly shone through.During her primary debates, Graham flopped on a softball debate question regarding Taiwan, confessing that “national security is not my thing.” In the same debate, she forgot the population of her own state, falsely claiming that South Carolina’s population is 50 million people—more than New York and Florida combined. Fact check: the state population is less than six million people.Andrews’s win marks the first time since 2005 that a Democrat has represented South Carolina in the Senate, and the first time that a woman earned the electorate’s vote for the coveted position.Read more about the race:It looks like Republicans have just played themselves in Florida. As midterm election results rolled in Tuesday night, it quickly became clear that GOP gerrymandering in the Sunshine State had seriously backfiredDemocrat Kathy Castor held onto her seat in Florida’s 14th congressional district, fending off a challenge from Republican Mike Beltran. Republicans purposefully redrew that district to get rid of Castor, by including a lot less of Tampa and a lot more of its outlying rural counties. In 2024, President Donald Trump won the areas making up this new district by 11 points. In Florida’s 22nd congressional district, Democrat Pia Dandiya defeated Republican Casey Askar, after Governor Ron DeSantis’s gerrymandering efforts created an open seat for the Republicans to steal. The state’s current 22nd district is represented by Democrat Lois Frankel, who is now running in Florida’s 23rd district. In the race for Florida’s Senate seat, Democratic socialist Angie Nixon was defeated by Republican incumbent Ashley Moody—but when the race was called at 84.3 percent of the vote reported, Moody led Nixon by only 0.7 percentage points. The Republican won, but not by nearly as much as expected for a historically red state.