| All Voters | Democrat | Republican | Independent | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| I’ve seen the ad | 80% | 87% | 79% | 74% |
| I’ve heard of the ad, but have not seen it | 17% | 12% | 15% | 24% |
| I haven't heard about the ad | 2% | 1% | 3% | 1% |
| Not sure | 1% | <1% | 3% | 1% |
| Skipped | <1% | <1% | - | <1% |
| Unweighted N | 827 | 298 | 264 | 250 |
| MoE | 3% | 6% | 6% | 6% |
2026 Miami University Survey of Ohio Voters
Survey
Election
Students in POL 307 fielded their annual survey of Ohio voters. Although students have written questions about AI, foreign policy, data centers, ICE, and abortion, the data for that will be used for their final project. In addition though we asked vote intention for the Ohio Gubernatorial and Senate race, along with questions about the Vivek Ramaswamy’s ads featuring Donna Arthur. In total there are 832 responses among likely voters, and details on the survey sampling and weights are in the AAPOR Disclosure section and the toplines are also below.
Overall we find in the gubernatorial race that Acton is currently ahead by 11 percentage points (with a margin of error of \(\pm\) 3%), while Brown is ahead by 7 percentage points (MoE of \(\pm\) 3%). More interestingly, we find that Vivek Ramaswamy’s ad featuring Amy Acton’s mother, Donna Arthur, increased negative perceptions of Ramasawamy while increasing positive percentages of Acton. Those effects are consistent across partisan affiliation and 2024 recall vote choice. The full results of the Dona Arthur ad are in the section below.
Vote Intention
Table 1 shows the full results for the Gubernatorial and Senate races. We find that Amy Acton is leading by 11 percentage points among likely voters with 52% of the vote compared to 41% for Vivek Ramaswamy. In addition, we find a very small percentage of voters who are undecided.
The race is slightly closer for the Senate, with 49% of likely voters indicating they will or have voted for Sherrod Brown, and 42% of voters indicating they will or have voted for Jon Husted.
The margin of error for this poll is \(\pm\) 3% points. For comparison, the class ran a similar poll in 2024 and found Brown up against Moreno by 2 percentage points, when Brown eventually lost by 4; Trump was up by 3 percentage points in the poll and won by 11. The 2024 poll was not weighted using 2020 recalled vote choice, while the 2026 poll is. The complete weight process and additional limitations are discussed in the AAPOR Disclosure
| Gov | Percent |
|---|---|
| Amy Acton | 52% |
| Vivek Ramaswamy | 41% |
| Other | 5% |
| Not Sure | 1% |
| Unweighted N=827, MoE: +/-3% | |
| Senate | Percent |
|---|---|
| Sherrod Brown | 49% |
| John Husted | 42% |
| Other | 7% |
| Not Sure | 2% |
| Unweighted N=826, MoE: +/-3% | |
Donna Arthur Ad
Vivek Ramaswamy’s campaign has recently released an ad featuring Donna Arthur, Amy Acton’s mother. In the ad Donna Arthur accuses Acton of being a liar, including making up stories about her childhood growing up in poverty. Acton has been estranged from her mother since she was a child after Acton testified about being sexually assaulted by her mother’s new husband. The ad has been widely seen with 80% of likely voters having seen the ad, while another 17% have heard of it but not seen it. Democrats are slightly more likely to have seen it compared to Republicans (87% to 79%). Table 2 show the total breakdown among likely voters.
Asking about the effects of the ad is complicated. The common question “Does this make you more or less likely to vote for a candidate” often leads to over reporting of change, as voters use this to also indicate their general opinion about the candidate. Graham and Coppock (2021) document this limitation and propose an alternative counterfacutal method. Here voters are first given the information about the “event” and asked their opinion, and are then asked what their opinion would be if they did not know that information. This method also has limits (voters aren’t good at predicting their own behavior) but Graham and Coppock (2021) shows that this generally preforms much more similarly to true randomized experiment (something that is not possible here given that the vast majority of our respondents already know about the ad).
To generate test the effect of the ad we implement this two step counterfactual approach. We first gave participants the below information:
Vivek Ramaswamy recently started to air a campaign ad featuring Donna Arthur, Amy Acton’s mother. In the ad, Donna Arthur accuses Amy Acton of being a liar, including that she lied about having lived in a tent as a child.
In response, Acton’s campaign has highlighted her previous statements that she was sexually abused by her stepfather between the ages of 10 and 12, and that she hasn’t seen her mother since testifying about it in court at age 12.
We then asked them to rate how favorably they view Ramaswamy and Acton. The full results for that are in Table 3. At this point we find that percents of Ramaswamy are, overall, negative, with 31% having either a very or somewhat favorable view of him, and 59% having a very or somewhat unfavorable view. In contrast, Acton’s are positive with 47% having either a very or somewhat favorable view of her, and 39% having a very or somewhat unfavorable view
| Candidate | Very favorable | Somewhat favorable | Neither favorable nor unfavorable | Somewhat unfavorable | Very unfavorable | Skipped | Net |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ramaswamy | 21% | 9% | 9% | 6% | 53% | 1% | −29% |
| Acton | 36% | 11% | 12% | 9% | 30% | 2% | 8% |
| N=827, MoE: +/-3%. Numbers may not add up to 100% due to rounding. | |||||||
Next voters were asked to imagine that the Ramaswamy campaign had not run the ad, and so they were unaware of Acton’s mother’s comments or her relationship with Acton. Under this situation, Ramaswamy is seen as more favorable and Acton is seen as slightly less favorable. In particular, 38% have a favorable view of Ramaswamy, and 53%have an unfavorable view. While 46% have a favorable of Acton, and 40% have an unfavorable view of her. The full breakdown is in Table 4.
| Candidate | Very favorable | Somewhat favorable | Neither favorable nor unfavorable | Somewhat unfavorable | Very unfavorable | Skipped | Net |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ramaswamy | 27% | 11% | 7% | 15% | 38% | 1% | −15% |
| Acton | 26% | 20% | 12% | 9% | 32% | 2% | 6% |
| N=827, MoE: +/-3%. Numbers may not add up to 100% due to rounding. | |||||||
To better understand those differences, Figure 1 shows the average favorability of each candidate by assigning scores of -2 to 2 to each response. The average score for Ramaswamy currently is -0.62, but when voters are asked to imagine that he had not run the ad this increases to -0.27. Estimating the effect of the ad by subtracting the actual scores from the counterfactual gives -0.34. For Acton this goes in the opposite direction, with the difference between her counterfactual evaluations and her actual one being 0.14 (0.13 - -0.02 ). These differences are visualized in Figure 2 below (along with 95% confidence intervals).
The effects were fairly consistent across partisanship and recalled 2024 Presidential vote choice. In Figure 3 we show the estimates of the differences across partisan identification. Both Democrats and Republicans have a more negative view of Ramaswamy because of the ad (the effects are actually smaller for Democrats, likely because they already would have reported a negative view). Independents had the largest difference with an average difference of -0.45 points. Figure 4 shows very similar differences.
AAPOR Disclosure
Data is from a survey of 827 likely voters in Ohio fielded from October 26-29, 2026. The sample frame was purchased from L2 Data and was a random sample of registered voters with cell phones. The survey was sponsored by the Menard Family Center for Democracy. The full survey language can be found here.
Participants were recruited using text messages and then completed the survey online. The sample was rake weighted to Ohio registered voters using education (3 categories), race (white/non-white) by sex, age (3 categories), recalled vote for the 2024 election, party registration, and vote history. The targets for the last two variables were taken from L2 voter file data while the remaining variables (except for recalled vote choice) were from the CPS November 2024 Voter Supplement. For recalled vote choice we assumed that 5% of votes in the 2024 election would fit into the “Other/Did not vote” category. After weighting we applied a screen, removing voters who say they would definitely not vote, or probably not vote.
The tables below show the results for all likely voters and then the subset of voters. The overall margin of error is \(\pm\) 5 percentage points. Note this only captures the error from sampling and does not account for errors as a result of question wording, frame over or undercoverage, etc. Our student researchers identify as from Miami University in their introductory text message, which leads to a higher response among educated voters, although weights can reduce this bias, they are not full proof.
Toplines
Below shows the toplines for election related questions and demographics. Questions written by students are being held back as they will be used for their final project.
| Response | Estimate |
|---|---|
| Do you intend to vote in the November 2026 general election? | |
| I already voted (early or absentee) | 29% |
| Yes, definitely | 66% |
| Probably | 5% |
| Have you seen the Vivek Ramaswamy campaign ad that features Amy Acton’s mother, Donna Arthur? | |
| I’ve seen the ad | 80% |
| I’ve heard of the ad, but have not seen it | 16% |
| I haven't heard about the ad | 2% |
| Not sure | 1% |
| Skipped | <1% |
| Vivek Ramaswamy recently started to air a campaign ad featuring Donna Arthur, Amy Acton’s mother. In the ad, Donna Arthur accuses Amy Acton of being a liar, including that she lied about having lived in a tent as a child. In response, Acton’s campaign has highlighted her previous statements that she was sexually abused by her stepfather between the ages of 10 and 12, and that she hasn't seen her mother since testifying about it in court at age 12. Based on the information you just read, do you have a favorable or unfavorable view of the following candidates?: Vivek Ramaswamy | |
| Very favorable | 21% |
| Somewhat favorable | 9% |
| Neither favorable nor unfavorable | 9% |
| Somewhat unfavorable | 6% |
| Very unfavorable | 53% |
| Skipped | 1% |
| Vivek Ramaswamy recently started to air a campaign ad featuring Donna Arthur, Amy Acton’s mother. In the ad, Donna Arthur accuses Amy Acton of being a liar, including that she lied about having lived in a tent as a child. In response, Acton’s campaign has highlighted her previous statements that she was sexually abused by her stepfather between the ages of 10 and 12, and that she hasn't seen her mother since testifying about it in court at age 12. Based on the information you just read, do you have a favorable or unfavorable view of the following candidates?: Amy Acton | |
| Very favorable | 35% |
| Somewhat favorable | 11% |
| Neither favorable nor unfavorable | 12% |
| Somewhat unfavorable | 10% |
| Very unfavorable | 30% |
| Skipped | 2% |
| Suppose that the Ramaswamy campaign had not run the ad featuring Amy Acton's mother, and so you did not know about Acton's mother's comments or her relationship with Amy Acton. What would your opinion of the following candidates be then?: Vivek Ramaswamy | |
| Very favorable | 27% |
| Somewhat favorable | 11% |
| Neither favorable nor unfavorable | 7% |
| Somewhat unfavorable | 15% |
| Very unfavorable | 38% |
| Skipped | 1% |
| Suppose that the Ramaswamy campaign had not run the ad featuring Amy Acton's mother, and so you did not know about Acton's mother's comments or her relationship with Amy Acton. What would your opinion of the following candidates be then?: Amy Acton | |
| Very favorable | 26% |
| Somewhat favorable | 20% |
| Neither favorable nor unfavorable | 12% |
| Somewhat unfavorable | 10% |
| Very unfavorable | 32% |
| Skipped | 2% |
| Generally speaking, do you think of yourself as a...? | |
| Democrat | 30% |
| Republican | 38% |
| Independent | 21% |
| Other | 9% |
| Not Sure | 2% |
| Skipped | <1% |
| Who did you vote for in the 2024 Presidential election? | |
| Donald Trump (Republican) | 49% |
| Kamala Harris (Democratic) | 45% |
| Someone else | 1% |
| Couldn't vote | 1% |
| Didn't vote | 3% |
| Don't remember | <1% |
| Skipped | <1% |
| What is the highest level of education you have completed? | |
| Some high school or less | 1% |
| High school diploma or GED | 14% |
| Some college, but no degree | 33% |
| Associates or technical degree | 25% |
| Bachelor’s degree | 15% |
| Graduate or professional degree (MA, MS, MBA, PhD, JD, MD, DDS etc.) | 10% |
| Prefer not to say | 2% |
| Skipped | <1% |
| Which race(s) and ethnicity(ies) do you consider yourself to be?: White or Caucasian (non-Hispanic) | |
| Yes | 19% |
| No | 81% |
| Which race(s) and ethnicity(ies) do you consider yourself to be?: Hispanic or Latino | |
| Yes | 95% |
| No | 5% |
| Which race(s) and ethnicity(ies) do you consider yourself to be?: Black or African American | |
| Yes | 91% |
| No | 9% |
| Which race(s) and ethnicity(ies) do you consider yourself to be?: American Indian/Native American or Alaska Native | |
| Yes | 98% |
| No | 2% |
| Which race(s) and ethnicity(ies) do you consider yourself to be?: Asian | |
| Yes | 99% |
| No | 1% |
| Which race(s) and ethnicity(ies) do you consider yourself to be?: Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander | |
| Yes | 100% |
| Which race(s) and ethnicity(ies) do you consider yourself to be?: Something else | |
| Yes | 98% |
| No | 2% |
| Which race(s) and ethnicity(ies) do you consider yourself to be?: Prefer not to say | |
| Yes | 93% |
| No | 7% |
| What is your gender? | |
| Man | 51% |
| Woman | 47% |
| Non-binary / third gender | 2% |
| NA | <1% |
| What was your total household income before taxes during the past 12 months? | |
| Less than $25,000 | 9% |
| $25,000-$49,999 | 13% |
| $50,000-$74,999 | 15% |
| $75,000-$99,999 | 14% |
| $100,000-$149,999 | 17% |
| $150,000 or more | 21% |
| Prefer not to say | 9% |
| Skipped | 1% |
| If the election for Governor and Lt. Governor were held today--who would you vote for? OR Confidentially and for statistical purposes only, who did you vote for in the election for Governor and Lt. Governor? | |
| Acton | 51% |
| Ramaswamy | 41% |
| Kissick | 4% |
| Other | 1% |
| Not voting | 1% |
| Not sure | 1% |
| And what if the election for US Senate were held today--who would you vote for? OR Again, confidentially and for statistical purposes only, who did you vote for in the election for US Senate? | |
| Brown | 49% |
| Husted | 42% |
| Levy | 1% |
| Redpath | 4% |
| Other | 2% |
| Not voting | 1% |
| Not sure | 2% |
| Skipped | <1% |
| Party Identification | |
| Strong Democrat | 25% |
| Weak Democrat | 5% |
| Lean Democrat | 15% |
| True Independent | 8% |
| Lean Republican | 9% |
| Weak Republican | 10% |
| Strong Republican | 28% |
| Skipped | <1% |
| Age in 4 categories | |
| <30 | 13% |
| 31-45 | 34% |
| 46-60 | 18% |
| 61+ | 31% |
| Skipped | 3% |