I opened my latest interview with Dr. Amy Acton by laying out a reality that would have seemed unthinkable to many just a year ago. Donald Trump’s approval rating in Ohio is now underwater. His net approval in the state is negative, and the political consequences are already rippling outward. In the race for governor, Dr. Acton, a physician and longtime public servant, is suddenly surging ahead of the Trump-endorsed MAGA candidate, Vivek Ramaswamy. I had the pleasure of speaking with Dr. Amy Acton a few months back, and I knew I had to have her back on the show to discuss the latest updates.
Put simply, Ohioans are not experiencing the “golden age” Trump boasts about from the gold-plated halls of Mar-a-Lago (are you?). They are living with rising costs, shrinking job security, and a growing sense that the federal government is actively working against their interests. In his second term, Donald Trump has doubled down on policies that hit working- and middle-class families hardest, from destabilizing the health care system to waging trade wars that punish manufacturing states like Ohio.
Before bringing Dr. Acton on, I walked through some of the numbers that are driving anxiety across the state. With Affordable Care Act subsidies set to expire, families are staring down staggering premium hikes. According to KFF estimates, a 40-year-old Ohioan earning $32,000 a year could see premiums jump more than 200 percent, or roughly $122 more per month, for a basic plan. A 60-year-old couple could face increases of more than 250 percent, around $1,500 extra each month. For many households, that is simply unaffordable, forcing people to choose between health coverage and other necessities.
At the same time, Trump’s economic agenda has been battering Ohio’s industrial backbone. Job losses have surged over the past year, with manufacturing and construction among the hardest-hit sectors. Federal funding that supports small and mid-sized manufacturers in Ohio has been abruptly halted, putting more than 100 jobs at immediate risk and jeopardizing assistance for roughly 14,000 manufacturers statewide. Local leaders say they have been given little explanation beyond vague references to an audit, while the damage continues in real time.
It was against this backdrop that Dr. Acton joined me. Now leading Ramaswamy by a point in recent polling, she spoke as someone who has spent decades working across administrations, not as a career politician but asnis a lifelong public servant.
“I’m a doctor. I’m not a lifelong politician, but I am a lifelong public servant,” she said. “I’ve been working with governors on both sides of the aisle to solve the problems of everyday life for Ohioans.”
Her campaign, she explained, has been built on listening. For nearly two years, she has traveled the state, hearing from people who are working harder than ever yet finding themselves with “no more breathing room left.” That lived experience stands in sharp contrast to the rhetoric coming from her billionaire opponent.
Dr. Acton did not mince words about Ramaswamy’s approach. She pointed to his widely criticized remarks blaming Ohio’s struggles on people essentially being lazy and mediocre, comments that landed with particular force in a state defined by manufacturing, service work, and generational labor. “That is not the Ohioans I see,” she said. “They’re dealing with so many pressures, and there’s no more breathing room.”
The split-screen between the two campaigns has become increasingly stark. Dr. Acton is regularly seen alongside steelworkers and manufacturers, talking about concrete solutions. Ramaswamy, by contrast, has drawn attention for attacking Ohioans, walking back his own statements, and treating the race like what many voters perceive as a vanity project by a wealthy outsider. As Dr. Acton noted, he has treated Ohio as a “flyover state,” travels the state by private jet, and moved his business operations out of Ohio.
“When you love Ohio like I do, you don’t treat Ohio like a flyover state,” she said. “When you love Ohio, you don’t move your business from Ohio to Texas. When you love Ohio, you don’t keep pitting our citizens against one another in endless culture wars.”
Dr. Acton’s own story is deeply rooted in the state. She grew up in Youngstown under difficult circumstances, “the stuff of Springsteen songs,” as she put it. That background informs her policy priorities today, from expanding Head Start and supporting child care subsidies to pushing for a state child tax credit. She sharply criticized Ramaswamy’s suggestion that extending the school day by an hour could solve Ohio’s child care crisis, calling it disconnected from the realities families face.
Dr. Acton’s campaign is notably cutting across party lines. She described crowds filled with independents and Republicans, united less by ideology than by exhaustion with division. “People are exhausted of being purposely pitted against one another,” she said. “They want to see you solve the 95 percent of things that we all agree on that affect our day-to-day lives.”
In her view, the stakes in Ohio now mirror a broader national reckoning under Trump’s presidency. “Everyone knows now that this is extreme wealth, power, ideology, and special interests against everyone else,” she said. Ohio, she argued, is becoming a bellwether again, a place where voters are pushing back before those agendas calcify further.
As we wrapped up, Dr. Acton made a direct appeal to viewers to join what she described as a growing movement, one taking on a self-funded billionaire backed by figures like Peter Thiel and Elon Musk. Her optimism was unmistakable, and she has a clear belief that competent, humane governance can still break through the noise.
From where I sit, that optimism is not abstract. It reflects a real shift I am seeing in Ohio, driven by the failures of Trump’s presidency and the hunger for leadership that treats people with dignity. Dr. Amy Acton is offering voters a choice rooted in service over spectacle, solutions over insults, and democracy over MAGA extremism. In today’s Ohio, that contrast is resonating.
Watch my newest interview with Dr. Acton above, and be sure to share this with friends and family, especially if they live in Ohio. Remember to add the MeidasTouch Podcast on Apple Podcasts and Spotify for even more interviews and reports.
