It was the businessman’s first public appearance in Springfield since September, when he held a town hall meeting amid national focus on the city’s large Haitian immigrant population. That attention came largely as a result of false rumors that the immigrants were eating people’s pets, as members of Ramaswamy’s party, including now-President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance, amplified the claims.
Ramaswamy told the crowd Thursday that attendees of that town hall opened his eyes “to the best way that I believe we can help the United States of America by leading the great state of Ohio back to greatness.” Several attendees of that town hall asked Ramaswamy to run for governor, and he said at the time he would consider a campaign.
“It was actually the moment in Springfield last fall that really turned around my thinking about how we were going to spend the next chapter of our journey,” Ramaswamy said Thursday. “A number of you were there.”
Ramaswamy repeated ideas he shared when announcing his candidacy, including his goal of making the state a leader in educational and economic achievement. He again said he will welcome anyone, no matter their political ideology, to his team to meet this goal.
Previously, Ramaswamy sought the GOP nomination for president in 2024, but dropped out to back Trump.
Amy Acton, who served as Gov. Mike DeWine’s Ohio Department of Health director from 2019 to 2020, is the only Democrat who has declared a run, though former congressman Tim Ryan and former Ohio Democratic Party chairman Chris Redfern have expressed interest.
Ramaswamy told the crowd that the country is in a “new era” with Trump’s election and he sought to build on that momentum, adapting the president’s slogan as a call to “Make Ohio Great Again.”
To Ramaswamy, that means instituting change based on merit rather than “the woke DEI regime,” ensuring elected officials rather than “unelected bureaucrats and three-letter agencies in Washington D.C. or for that matter in Columbus, Ohio” run the government.
“The golden age for America is about to be a golden age for federalism in America, just like our founding fathers envisioned,” Ramaswamy said.
But this time, Ohio will be at the forefront, he said.
“I want to lead Ohio to be the top state in the country to raise a young family, to generate wealth, to give our kids a world-class education and to be the state that sets the standard for our peers across our nation,” Ramaswamy said.
State Sen. Kyle Koehler told the News-Sun that the Republican Party had never had such high attendance at an annual dinner. The event Thursday was held at the historic Simon Kenton Inn on Urbana Road.
This story will be updated with additional details.
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