TOLEDO – This year, Ohio has not one, but two toss-up races, according to the Cook Political Report. They are the state’s gubernatorial race between Democrat Amy Acton and Republican Vivek Ramaswamy, and the U.S. Senate race between incumbent Republican Jon Husted and Democrat Sherrod Brown.
The “anyone’s game” nature of these contests is an unignorable incentive for campaigns and super PACs (political action committees) to spend … and spend big. It’s money that materializes in the form of ads across broadcast television, radio, cable, and social media platforms. And already, Ohioans are seeing the impact of those dollars in a number of places.
In the race for governor, candidate Ramaswamy has an early lead on the airwaves. While super PACs and campaigns are prohibited from coordinating with one another, that doesn’t mean they can’t act strategically on their own. In the case of Ramaswamy’s campaign and V-PAC: Victors, Not Victims, a super PAC supporting him, each has managed to hone in on a clearly-defined message.
One of the Ramaswamy campaign’s initial statewide, multiplatform ad buys — an investment of $10 million, according to a March press release — is built around two, thirty-second spots: one featuring his wife and another with a sheriff’s endorsement. The ads, intended to paint Ramaswamy as both personable and electable, create quite a contrast with those being run by the flush super PAC supporting him.
Those spots, while varying in length, have a throughline in their negative depictions of his opponent. One of the V-PAC ads brands Acton “the liberal who shut down Ohio” and accuses her of running on a “radical left” platform. The ad’s COVID claim is undercut by none other than the state’s sitting governor, Republican Mike DeWine. Back in December, DeWine told Columbus TV station WCMH that “the decisions that were made during COVID, they were my decisions, so no one should blame someone else if they don’t like it.” As for the accusation of Acton “running on a radical left platform,” she promised voters, in a June 4 announcement, “to appoint a Republican to her cabinet.”
That same ad, citing a speech Acton delivered on June 25 of 2025, claims she supports “woke ‘DEI’ racial preferences at Ohio colleges and universities.” She’s taken no such position, though the attack isn’t unfamiliar. It’s reminiscent of Republican messaging in 2022, which often centered culture war issues — and in some cases —was effective. It’s unclear whether these kinds of attacks will have the same rallying effect, four years later, on an electorate that’s more concerned about the economy and personal finances, polling shows, than it is with cultural debates.
Acton, meantime, is currently absent from the airwaves. She can instead be found on the web. The campaign’s post-primary filing, from June, shows it spent hundreds of thousands on digital advertising in May of this year. Its annual filing for 2025, from January, lists thousands of dollars of digital advertising expenditure last year, particularly in October, November, and December.
However, Acton’s ad presence won’t be confined to online spaces for the entirety of this race. It’s expected that the campaign will begin traditional advertising at some point. In a June 30 interview with the Toledo Free Press, Acton’s running mate, David Pepper, said “we’ll have ads, and our ads will tell our story. Our ads will also point out what a flawed candidate Vivek Ramaswamy is.” He claimed that “we will have more than any Democratic candidate has ever had” and insisted that “we’re not panicking like he [Ramaswamy] is.” Pepper cited effectively unmoved polling numbers, even since the attack ads began, as reason not to rush a competing message to air.
The campaign did, back on July 28, debut its first ad of the cycle, though it’s unclear how much is being spent or where it’s being promoted. The spot, which goes by the title “Tent,” is in reference to Acton’s Youngstown upbringing and seeks to introduce her as focused on lowering costs for Ohio families.
Money, of course, plays a big role in a candidate’s ability to ensure their message reaches voters. Post-primary financial reports show the Acton and Ramaswamy campaigns raised $5.3 million and $4.5 million, respectively, between April 16 and June 5 of this year. While Acton took the lead in that particular period, Ramaswamy possesses a stronger war chest overall, with a cash advantage of $26.7 million to Acton’s $8.1 million. He also has an advantage in his personal wealth, being a billionaire, to self-fund at an exceptional degree. His campaign’s pre-primary filing shows he’s already done that this year, pouring in $25 million of his own money.
Democrats, while outraised in the gubernatorial race, are seeing better fortunes in the U.S. Senate race. Filings with the Federal Elections Commission show Brown’s campaign with $16.2 million on hand. Husted’s campaign account, by comparison, has a cash balance of $9.4 million. But Husted’s fundraising underperformance is effectively offset by a $79 million ad investment, in support of his campaign, by the Republican-aligned Senate Leadership Fund. The Senate Majority PAC, a Democratic group, announced $40 million in ad support for Brown.
One of the early ways in which Brown has deployed his financial resources is on an ad linking Husted to data centers, which have grown increasingly unpopular among Ohioans, due to concerns their expanding presence will raise electricity prices, harm the environment, and consume fertile farmland. Husted’s campaign, after coming out with an initial introductory ad, has also released spots linking Brown to former President Joe Biden and branding Husted as the candidate of change.
And in Ohio’s 9th Congressional District, incumbent Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Toledo) is seeking reelection under district lines that were redrawn in 2025. She again faces Republican Derek Merrin, who she narrowly defeated in 2024, by 2,382 votes. This time around, the district is redder than it was before (with Trump at +11), even as the national environment has become bluer. And while it’s unclear exactly how much Kaptur’s campaign has spent on its initial ad buy, which includes an affordability-focused spot, the Democratic House Majority PAC plans to support her with $3 million in ad reservations for the Toledo market.
While the age-old wisdom of elections heating up after Labor Day is likely to hold up, it’s worth paying attention to how campaigns allocate their resources, as that can be a statement of the worry — or lack thereof — they have about November. And remember: it’s early. Things will almost certainly intensify closer to the fall, as more outside groups begin kicking in their own share of ad money.
RELATED: An interview with Jessica Taylor, U.S. Senate and governors editor for the Cook Political Report, on the state of Ohio’s gubernatorial race.
