Former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy appears to be the early GOP favorite in the 2026 Ohio governor’s race, while former Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) leads among Democrats, according to a recent poll.
According to a February poll conducted by the Bowling Green State University (BGSU) Democracy and Public Policy Research Network and YouGov, Ramaswamy is leading the pack of Republican candidates in Ohio, with 61 percent support from prospective GOP primary voters.
Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost and Heather Hill follow with 24 percent and 9 percent support, respectively.
According to the BGSU/YouGov poll, Ramaswamy is better known than the other two candidates, which “is likely driving much of his early support.”
They also mentioned that the survey was conducted before President Trump endorsed Ramaswamy’s candidacy.
The poll looked at the state of the Democratic primary race, which so far has only one candidate, former Ohio Health Director Amy Acton.
Pollsters asked prospective Democratic primary voters about Acton, as well as two other Ohio Democrats: Brown, who lost his Senate reelection bid in 2024, and former Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio), who ran unsuccessfully for a seat in the upper chamber against Vice President Vance in 2022.
When asked which candidate they would prefer to be the Democratic nominee for governor in 2026, 59 percent of prospective Democratic Ohio voters said Brown, 20 percent said Acton, and 17 percent said Ryan.
In a hypothetical two-way race between Acton and Ryan, potential Democratic primary voters were split 46 percent to 45 percent.
The poll was conducted from February 14 to 21, 2025, and included 800 registered Ohio voters. The margin of error is four percentage points.
