Cook Political Report shifts Ohio governor race to toss-up

Indian American support for Ramaswamy is not guaranteed

The Cook Political Report this month shifted Ohio’s race for governor from “leans Republican” to “toss-up,” a rating that arrived even though the state has not elected a Democrat as governor in two decades and Donald Trump carried Ohio by more than 11 points in the 2024 presidential election. Republican nominee Vivek Ramaswamy is running against Democrat Amy Acton in the November general election.

Ramaswamy, born in Cincinnati in 1985 to parents who immigrated from Kerala, is a Harvard- and Yale-educated biotech entrepreneur who made billions of dollars. He received Donald Trump’s much-coveted endorsement in February 2025, nearly two years before the election, and went on to win the Republican primary in May with 82% of the vote. He has little political experience, having failed in his 2024 Republican presidential bid before backing Trump, the eventual winner.

Ohio’s Indian Americans are the state’s largest immigrant group. An estimated 18,000 Indian immigrants live in metro Columbus, many of them students or faculty at Ohio State University, whose president, Ravi Bellamkonda, is from Telangana in southern India. In Dublin, a suburb north-west of Columbus, the roughly 6,000-strong Indian American community is prominent enough that local movie theaters show Bollywood films throughout the day. The Dublin Cricket Club has about 100 players, close to 70% to 80% of them of Indian heritage, according to board member Himavanth Ganta, who moved from Hyderabad to the US for college in 2012 and works in software for a large banking institution. “We got our own cricket ground in 2016,” Ganta said. “It’s the sport that every Indian boy plays; it’s my passion.”

Nationally, a February poll by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace found that support for Democrats among Indian Americans has slipped, with the share identifying as Democrat declining from 52% in 2020 to 46% this year.

At the Hindu Temple of Dayton in south-west Ohio, Shri Ashwani Kumar, a priest from India’s Himachal Pradesh state who has served at the temple since the early 1990s, said Ramaswamy and his parents have been coming to pray there for decades. “I remember him coming here with his parents when he was a little child,” Kumar said, adding that he intends to vote for Ramaswamy in November. “We are citizens, so we always support our [vote]. Real Hindu people believe in goodness,” he said. “Peace and goodness.”

Organized backing for Ramaswamy has also formed. Last November, the Ohio chapter of Americans4Hindus, a political action committee, was created and immediately endorsed him. Its president, Neil Patel, said the Indian American community in Columbus and across Ohio is strongly supportive. “I’d say in the range of 70% to 80%. People are excited. They see Vivek as someone who understands both our cultural roots and the American Dream,” Patel said. He described Ramaswamy as “a proud Ohioan, a successful entrepreneur, and a father who wants the same opportunities for every child that he and his family have been blessed with,” and said Ramaswamy “has a clear, practical plan that speaks to what Ohio families actually care about – putting more money in people’s pockets and giving kids a world-class education.”

Other Indian Americans have voiced reservations. Priya Tamilarasan, an attorney and Democrat based in the metro Columbus area whose parents immigrated from Tamil Nadu in southern India decades ago, said Ramaswamy is “out of touch from the struggles and concerns of the community – both the Indian American community, and the majority of Ohioans.” Tamilarasan cited Ramaswamy’s decision to spend part of the Fourth of July holiday weekend in France during the America 250 commemoration. “I think it’s very telling that, especially during the campaign cycle, especially during America 250 that he chose to focus on his own lavish lifestyle [by traveling to France],” she said. “Connection with and trusting the candidate requires deeper bonds than just someone that looks like you, or speaks the same language as you, or who has a name like you.”

Ganta said the character of a candidate matters more than background. “My friends say that [Ramaswamy] is someone to be proud of, being Indian,” he said. “I really don’t care what the candidate’s origin is. They have to do the right things for the people. Our priority is not to have an Indian as a governor; instead, we want them to take care of the people of Ohio.”

Ramaswamy has faced criticism during the campaign over several of his public actions. In December 2024, he wrote on X that “Our American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence for way too long … A culture that celebrates the prom queen over the math olympiad champ, or the jock over the valedictorian, will not produce the best engineers.” In May, asked by a television reporter in Youngstown to name his favorite place to stop by in the city, he responded, “I love long drives.” He was criticized for spending part of the Fourth of July holiday weekend in Paris. In January, an Ohio-based security person who worked for Ramaswamy was arrested on drug trafficking charges; the campaign team fired the security company that employed the bodyguard shortly afterward.

Acton, who led Ohio’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic for several months in 2020, is also a political newcomer. The two candidates are set to face each other in the November general election.