CLEVELAND — A super PAC backing Vivek Ramaswamy for governor in Ohio is launching a $3 million ad campaign that highlights his endorsement from President Donald Trump — an early push to cement the biotech entrepreneur as the undisputed Republican front-runner more than a year before GOP voters select their nominee.
“He has a big, beautiful, bright future ahead,” Trump is seen and heard saying of Ramaswamy in one of the spots set to debut Tuesday. The 15-second ad, which was shared first with NBC News, also shows footage of Trump and Ramaswamy embracing at an event last year.
A companion 30-second spot features a clip of Ramaswamy praising Trump and a narrator informing viewers of Trump’s support: “Endorsed by Trump, Vivek will make Ohio a state of excellence, the leading state to grow a business, get an education, raise a family.”
The ads, paid for by V-PAC: Victors not Victims, will air for three weeks on broadcast TV stations in Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati and Dayton and on digital platforms statewide, a GOP operative working with the group said. The allied group, as well as Ramaswamy’s campaign, employs consultants with close political ties to Trump and Vice President JD Vance, a former senator from Ohio.
Ramaswamy, 39, who ran for president in 2024 and worked to set up Trump’s federal cost-cutting initiative led by billionaire Elon Musk, declared his candidacy last month and immediately landed Trump’s endorsement. His campaign announced Monday that it had raised $1 million in its first two weeks.
V-PAC, which is not subject to the same fundraising limits as a candidate’s committee and can take in donations of unlimited size, has raised more than $15 million in that time, the GOP operative said.
“We’re building a massive war chest for this race that no other candidate in either the primary or general election will be able to compete with,” the operative added. “After President Trump’s monumental early endorsement of Vivek, the floodgates from the donor community have opened up and we expect to have the resources necessary to steamroll the competition.”
The fast start comes as Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost remains in the GOP gubernatorial primary — and as Lt. Gov. Jim Tressel embarks on a schedule of GOP dinners that has kept alive speculation that he might seek the nomination.
Tressel, a former Ohio State Buckeyes football coach with celebrity status to match Ramaswamy, became lieutenant governor last month. Gov. Mike DeWine, who is serving his second term and is barred from running again, appointed Tressel to succeed Sen. Jon Husted, a Republican who had been eyeing the governor’s race before taking over Vance’s old Senate seat. Tressel has not ruled out running for governor in 2026.
“For someone who has never run for office in Ohio to raise $1 million in two weeks, it’s unprecedented,” Jai Chabria, a top Ramaswamy adviser, wrote in a statement to NBC News. “The level of support he has garnered in such a short time is as clear a sign of Vivek’s strength as a candidate. It also underscores Ohioans’ hunger for fresh ideas and new energy — they’re rallying behind his bold vision for the future, not just the status quo.”
Ramaswamy is positioning himself as an antidote to more experienced Republicans like Yost, who has won four statewide elections. Parts of Ramaswamy’s agenda reads like a state-level application of Trump and Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. Ramaswamy is calling for less spending and fewer regulations, the elimination of the state’s income tax and merit-based pay for teachers. All are ideas that Ohio’s GOP leaders have to varying degrees proposed in the past but have been unable to advance.
Trump has won Ohio three times by decisive margins, and his endorsements, coupled with rally appearances, proved to be clinching factors in two of the state’s recent Republican slugfests.
In 2022, Trump’s support lifted Vance, his future vice president, out of a messy primary and into a Senate seat. And in another rancorous Senate primary last year, businessman Bernie Moreno flooded the airwaves with clips of Trump’s praise for him — even before he officially landed Trump’s endorsement. Moreno won the nomination over more seasoned Republican candidates and went on to unseat longtime Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown.
Dr. Amy Acton, who served as Ohio’s health director in the early days of the pandemic, is seeking the Democratic nomination for governor. Others, like former Rep. Tim Ryan, who lost to Vance in the 2022 Senate race, could also enter the primary.
A Democrat has not been elected governor in Ohio since 2006. Since 2010, Brown is the only Democrat to win a nonjudicial statewide office.
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