Vivek Ramaswamy, one of the leaders of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s proposed new Department of Government Efficiency, walks on the day of his meeting with members of Congress on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S. December 5, 2024.
Evelyn Hockstein | Reuters
CLEVELAND — Biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, who will declare his candidacy for governor of Ohio on Monday, wants to reshape public schools, cut regulations and slash spending.
It’s a disruptive agenda that sounds a lot like the one that Ramaswamy helped draw up for President Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.
But in an interview with NBC News ahead of his campaign launch, the former Republican presidential contender hesitated when confronted with that observation.
“There are a lot of people sort of eager to sort of make that analogy and characterization,” Ramaswamy said. “But I think I characterize my vision for Ohio expansively.”
Divorcing DOGE from Ramaswamy’s bid for governor is nevertheless a tricky exercise. Ramaswamy, 39, had been expected to execute the Trump administration’s cost-cutting initiative alongside billionaire tech mogul Elon Musk. He said his decision to step aside before DOGE was officially up and running reflected a realization that the job would prevent him from campaigning and a belief that he could be more useful to the cause back home in Ohio.
“President Trump, Elon and I had a great relationship but talked about exactly where each of us was going to drive maximum change for the country,” Ramaswamy said. “And, for me, I believe that leading from the front here in Ohio and setting an example for the rest of the country and, frankly, even bringing some of the principles of efficiency and spending and deregulation to our state would be the way that I as a leader would be able to have the biggest impact.”
Ramaswamy’s association with DOGE, and the Trump administration’s overall push to reorient federal government and slash spending, could help position him as a change agent even as he runs to extend 16 years of GOP control in Ohio.
It could also be a liability. Ohio has a sizable number of federal employees, and there are concerns in the state about the future of federal Medicaid funding. In a recent CNN poll, 51% of respondents said they believe Trump has gone “too far” in cutting federal programs. (Another 32% said Trump has “been about right” and 17% said he has “not gone far enough.”)
“I think the way we’re going to do it in Ohio, the way we’re going to run the state, is going to be, I believe, wildly popular with everyone who is a parent and has skin in the game for the next generation,” Ramaswamy said when asked if he worried about political fallout.
Ramaswamy filed paperwork earlier this month to begin raising money for the race and is expected to kick off a statewide announcement tour Monday night in Cincinnati. His long-anticipated campaign has shaken up the GOP field in the Buckeye State, where Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican, is barred from seeking a third consecutive term.
Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost entered the race earlier than expected, in mid-January, following the first round of buzz about a Ramaswamy campaign. State Treasurer Robert Sprague, who had been preparing to run and initially signaled that Ramaswamy’s plans would not affect his own, threw his support to Ramaswamy this month and instead launched a bid for Ohio secretary of state.
Lt. Gov. Jim Tressel, the former Ohio State football coach whom DeWine recently picked to be his deputy, has also stoked speculation that he might seek the GOP nomination and has not ruled out the possibility.
‘DOGE before DOGE was cool’
In previous campaigns, Yost, who served two terms as Ohio’s elected auditor before his two terms as attorney general, ran under the slogan “Peace, love and skinny government.” In an interview, Yost proclaimed that he was “DOGE before DOGE was cool.”
“It’s the difference between somebody who can give a speech and somebody who can do a job,” Yost said, contrasting himself with Ramaswamy. “Not to denigrate my own ability to give a speech, but the key is, I’ve been on the front lines working for the goals that Ohioans share. I’ve been in the trenches fighting the battles against federal overreach, protecting the Constitution. And I just candidly think I’m much better prepared to bring bold leadership to Ohio.”
Yost, 68, added that he considered Ramaswamy to be a friend — but also characterized him as a shifty amateur who has trouble following through on his political commitments.
“He has wanted, over the last year, to be president, to have a Cabinet spot, to be co-leader of DOGE,” Yost said. “The governor of Ohio is not a consolation prize. … My concern is that what he seems to do best is to quit.”
Close advisers to Vice President JD Vance, some of them with overlapping ties to Trump, signed on last month to steer Ramaswamy’s effort and an aligned political organization. But while Ramaswamy has a national profile and proximity to Trump world, he remains a political novice and outsider in a state where career officeholders like DeWine and former Sen. Sherrod Brown, a Democrat, had long thrived — at least until Vance won a Senate seat in 2022 in his first run for office.
Internal polling shared by the Ramaswamy and Yost teams showed that both are popular with GOP voters in Ohio while also underscoring how a Trump endorsement could boost either candidate. But without a Trump endorsement or other information about Ramaswamy or Yost factored into the questions, Ramaswamy led both campaigns’ polls.
Ramaswamy declined to comment when asked how confident he was of receiving Trump’s support. Yost said he has not discussed the race with Trump but hoped to have the conversation. He dodged when asked if a Trump endorsement of Ramaswamy would alter his plans.
“I’m the only person in the race that has had his endorsement,” said Yost, referring to Trump’s support of his 2022 re-election campaign, “and I am very hopeful that I will have it. So the calculation is with his endorsement, I not only will win, but will win going away.”
‘I’m not looking to pick a fight with anybody’
Ramaswamy’s 2024 presidential bid, which ended before Ohio’s March primary, raised speculation that he might run for office in his native state. He had been floated as a prospect for Vance’s Senate seat, but DeWine appointed his former lieutenant governor, Jon Husted, to fill the vacancy, removing another potential Ramaswamy rival from the gubernatorial field.
Though he’s never held elected office, Ramaswamy has cultivated political relationships in Ohio in recent years. A Cincinnati native who now lives in the Columbus area, Ramaswamy served on the board of InnovateOhio, a tech-focused agency that Husted founded and led.
“Many of the things that I aspired to accomplish as U.S. president actually more effectively and, in some cases, only could be accomplished by an actual governor,” said Ramaswamy, who added that leaders across the state had “actively recruited” him to run for the job. “I believe Ohio has the potential to be the state that really leads the way in our national revival.”
As he described his vision, Ramaswamy shifted between abstract goals — “energy dominance, manufacturing dominance and AI dominance” — and more specific policy proposals. He talked of phasing out the state’s income tax and shaking up K-12 education by promoting homeschooling and instituting a merit-based pay system for public school teachers.
“Merit-based pay for teachers, merit-based pay for principals, administrators and superintendents,” Ramaswamy said. “The best teachers deserve to be paid much more than they are right now, and yet they’re not, because there’s no meritocracy in compensation. That would make the state the magnet for the best educators across the country.”
The income tax and merit pay ideas are proposals that have surfaced to some degree among previous Republican governors or in a state legislature long dominated by the GOP, but they have never made it into law. Teachers unions and other lobbying groups in Columbus, the state capital, have always been a barrier. Ramaswamy believes the political climate is different now.
“I would tell you that it is a uniting issue across parents, across the state,” he said. “My view is I’m not looking to pick a fight with anybody. I’m not going to seek a fight with the teachers unions or anybody else. What I’m going to stand for is the achievement of our students.”
Ramaswamy added: “I don’t think a standard politician can get that job done. I do think it’s going to take somebody with fresh legs, a governor who is willing to drive real change. I think that that’s going to require a leader for our moment that was a little different than a traditional politician, and that’s a big part of why I’m called into this race as well.”
As for any future White House ambitions he may have, Ramaswamy pledged to serve at least a four-year term, which would take a run in 2028 — and a potential primary clash with Vance — off the table.
“I’m fully committed to serving a full term,” Ramaswamy said. “It is my expectation that an agenda as ambitious as the one we’re pursuing will likely take two terms to fully implement.”
