Early in 2026, no one had the Ohio governor’s race on their list of possible major flips. Early polling and fundraising showed Vivek Ramaswamy, running on a platform to eliminate teachers’ unions, in a dominant position to win.

But a group of forward-looking union leaders and progressive donors decided to plant their flag against Ramaswamy anyway. We launched an organic social media campaign the previous October to soften the ground, then a paid advertising campaign in May, before Amy Acton’s campaign became a force to be reckoned with, or any national groups had entered the race.

From the previous October up to the primary, we enlisted trusted messengers from the union community to run an organic social campaign softening the ground against Ramaswamy. Trained on organic social media strategies developed by CounterPoint, this cohort of micro-influencers earned at least half a million impressions.

For the paid campaign, working with Ohio-based stakeholders, we built on a voter model of “double haters”: voters with negative feelings toward both parties, the kind of group that broke strongly for Trump in 2024.

We crafted a series of anti-Ramaswamy ads and used 1:1 voter targeting to reach the double-hater group exclusively, alongside broader contextual advertising. The first tracking poll showed a 4-point move toward Acton, with Ramaswamy’s numbers on several issues deeply negative. We kept advertising through the summer, and the DGA entered the race closer to the fall.

By mid-October, late tracking polls showed a 10-point collapse for Ramaswamy among the key double-hater group. Within a week, he launched a desperate ad featuring Acton’s mother, drawing fire from local, state and national figures of both parties.

The AP called the race for Amy Acton, who won with 52% of the vote, with Ramaswamy trailing by more than five points.