DeWine won’t endorse Vivek Ramaswamy for now, as Amy Acton leads in a poll

Even though Republican Gov. Mike DeWine said on Thursday he will eventually endorse the Republican nominee to replace him as governor, he refused to endorse Vivek Ramaswamy for now, as a recent poll indicates that he is trailing his Democratic opponent, Amy Acton.

While talking to reporters, DeWine said he previously talked with Ramaswamy, adding that he “enjoyed those discussions.”

“I hope to have some more discussions about policy with him. I fully expect to endorse the Republican nominee for governor sometime in the future,” he told the Dayton Daily News.

When asked why he, unlike other Republicans in the country, refused to endorse Ramaswamy right away, DeWine said that they are “still having discussions,” and he is not ready to make a final decision yet.

“I want to get a better understanding of his positions, what his vision is, and I would say the discussions have been good,” he said. “Obviously, I want to talk to him about some of the things that I see, as well.”

A potential reason DeWine has not yet endorsed Ramaswamy is his overall drop in popularity, as indicated by a recent Emerson College poll.

According to the poll, Acton is now leading Ramaswamy by one percentage point in the race. She has 46% support, Ramaswamy has 45%, and 9% of voters say they haven’t made a decision yet.

The recent poll may surprise some, given that Ramaswamy led in August.

“The August Emerson College poll found women voters split between Ramaswamy and Acton, 44% to 42%, and men breaking for Ramaswamy 54% to 36%,” Spencer Kimball, executive director of Emerson College Polling, said. “Four months later, men still support Ramaswamy by about 20 points, 55% to 35%, but women have shifted toward Acton, breaking for her 56% to 37%.”

To explain the poll results, one might think that Republicans have become less popular in Ohio or that women are now much more likely to support Acton, but other poll results indicate that neither is a valid explanation.

The poll showed that in the U.S. Senate race, U.S. Sen. Jon Husted, R-Ohio, leads with 49% support, ahead of Democratic former Sen. Sherrod Brown at 46%, with only 5% being undecided. Even though Brown’s support increased by two points, Husted’s support decreased by only one point.

This suggests that the drop in Ramaswamy’s overall popularity may be due to his unpopularity, for example, following his proposal for “year-round” schools.

Ramaswamy also sought to distance himself from anti-Trump representatives of a tech group by removing his description and photo from the group’s website. The attempt was unsuccessful because conservative activists and journalists captured a screenshot of the webpage before it was edited.

President Donald Trump, Ohio Treasurer Robert Sprague and Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost, among others, previously endorsed Ramwamy.

On the other hand, several labor unions endorsed Acton.