Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) slammed Vivek Ramaswamy, who was the Ohio Republican gubernatorial candidate, saying he was never in tune with voters’ interests.
“How bad did they beat Vivek like a drum?” DeSantis said Wednesday on The Sage Steele Show. “Now, part of that was Vivek, quite frankly. I don’t know why they would have pushed him to be the candidate there.”
The “bluenami” of 2026 resulted in Republicans losing control of the Senate, House, and several gubernatorial seats, including in Ohio. Ramaswamy lost his race to Gov.-elect Amy Acton by around 8 percentage points with 98% of votes counted. DeSantis said Ramaswamy was not the best candidate to put forward.
“My mom’s from Youngstown,” DeSantis said. “Ohio is a working-class state, very blue-collar. You know, Vivek, he’s like a tech guy, did this Alzheimer’s drug, and he wants to bring in people, foreign workers on visas. That is not the type of person that’s going to sell.”
Ramaswamy’s campaign also faced immense backlash close to Election Day after an attack ad featuring Acton’s estranged mother, Donna Arthur, was released. In the ad, Arthur called her daughter a liar, leading to backlash. Acton accused her stepfather of sexual abuse when she was 12, and Acton’s mother remained married to him. Instead of halting the ad, Ramaswamy doubled down, investing $4 million into promoting it.
AMY ACTON RIDES ANGER OVER VIVEK RAMASWAMY AD TO BECOME OHIO’S GOVERNOR
DeSantis alluded to Ramaswamy’s campaign mishap but said the candidate was already not appealing.
“I know he shot himself in the foot,” DeSantis said. “I know he did a lot of other stuff to make it a real landslide against him. But even with that, it’s like, you got to meet the voters where they are on some of this stuff. I think we would have done better in Ohio had we had a candidate that was more representative or more in tune with the interests of, kind of, these blue-collar people that make the backbone of Ohio.”