Ramaswamy refused to debate his GOP challenger. Now he says candidates who won’t debate ‘can’t lead.’

Vivek Ramaswamy has a new test for whether someone is qualified to govern Ohio: whether they are willing to debate him.

“If you certainly are not willing to debate then you certainly can’t lead the state,” Ramaswamy said this week after Democratic gubernatorial nominee Amy Acton declined invitations to debate him, according to the Ohio Capital Journal.

Ramaswamy has repeatedly attacked Acton over the decision. In a Statehouse News Bureau interview Thursday, he called debates “a basic part of the job interview” and said Acton should “show up.”

But Ramaswamy did not follow that standard when he was the overwhelming favorite in Ohio’s Republican primary earlier this year.

Casey Putsch, the Republican who challenged Ramaswamy for the nomination, publicly called on Ramaswamy to face him in a debate.

“Debate me,” Putsch said in one public challenge. He later campaigned on the message: “Vivek won’t debate me.”

Ramaswamy never debated him.

Putsch was not merely a write-in candidate or outside agitator. He qualified for the Republican gubernatorial primary ballot alongside Ramaswamy and Heather Hill. Official Republican primary ballots listed all three tickets.

Putsch went on to receive nearly 18% of the Republican primary vote. Ramaswamy won easily.

There was no Republican gubernatorial debate.

And the contradiction predates Ramaswamy’s campaign for governor.

Ramaswamy once called ducking debates “fundamentally uncourageous”

In May 2023, when Donald Trump was considering skipping Republican presidential primary debates, Ramaswamy argued that a frontrunner had an obligation to face his opponents.

“I think it would be fundamentally uncourageous for Donald Trump to refuse to debate,” Ramaswamy said during an interview on the Guy Benson Show on Fox News Radio.

Ramaswamy went further, saying Republicans “should be unafraid of open debate” and arguing that voters did not want “somebody who’s uncourageous and ducks debate.”

Then Trump decided to skip the first Republican presidential debate.

By August, Ramaswamy had changed his position.

Asked on CNN about his earlier criticism, Ramaswamy said he now had “no issue” with Trump skipping the first couple of debates, although he said he would object if Trump refused to participate throughout the entire debate season.

Three years later, when Ramaswamy himself was the dominant Republican candidate for Ohio governor, Putsch wanted a debate.

Ramaswamy did not give him one.

Now that Ramaswamy wants a debate and Acton does not, the standard has changed again: refusing to participate, he says, means a candidate “can’t lead the state.”

Another candidate is still waiting for Ramaswamy to debate him

The inconsistency has continued into the general election.

Libertarian gubernatorial nominee Don Kissick has also publicly pressed Ramaswamy to debate. The Ohio Capital Journal reported Friday that Kissick posted video of himself asking Ramaswamy to agree to a debate after an Ohio Conference of Teamsters event.

Kissick said he was “still waiting” for a commitment from both major-party candidates.

Ramaswamy, meanwhile, has accepted debate invitations from CNN and Cincinnati television station WLWT that would feature him and Acton.

Acton says she will not “platform” Ramaswamy

Acton’s campaign has not argued that debates are unimportant. Instead, it says the extraordinary volume and nature of the attacks Ramaswamy and groups supporting him have directed at Acton make sharing a debate stage with him counterproductive.

Campaign manager Phil Stein gave a lengthy explanation for the decision:

“Dr. Acton’s focus is on talking with Ohioans, not platforming a scam artist who spreads baseless lies about her and her family, uses AI to falsely paint her as someone with a substance abuse problem, and shames Dr. Acton for being sexually abused as a child while Vivek stands with predators and abusers. Ramaswamy and his billionaire buddies have spent more than $50 million on disgusting, inaccurate attack ads that have been condemned as the ‘most vile and repulsive lies’ Ohio has ever seen,” Stein said.

The statement came after months in which independent news organizations have repeatedly scrutinized factual claims in ads attacking Acton.

Cleveland.com found Ramaswamy’s COVID attacks omitted his own pandemic advocacy. PolitiFact rated his claim that Acton “called off” Ohio’s 2020 primary “Mostly False”, noting Republican Gov. Mike DeWine has repeatedly said the decision was his.

More recently, records examined by the Cincinnati Enquirer disputed a central claim in another Ramaswamy campaign ad blaming Acton for the isolation and death of a Republican activist’s mother. The woman lived in Kentucky and died after Ohio’s stay-at-home order had ended and after Acton had left her state post.

WEWS also examined ads portraying Acton as an alcoholic and drug abuser. Police records from a 2019 domestic call said both Acton and her husband had been drinking and that Acton had taken prescription medication, but the report did not say she was intoxicated and described the incident as a verbal dispute with no evidence of physical violence. Acton has denied having a substance abuse problem.

Ramaswamy has repeatedly declined to answer questions himself

Ramaswamy’s new insistence that candidates submit themselves to scrutiny also comes after months of reporting about questions his own campaign has left unanswered.

In August alone, Cleveland.com reported that Ramaswamy again refused to clearly state his position on guns and published another report documenting a non-answer on a major Ohio issue.

The publication later described the gubernatorial contest as having “a transparency problem” centered on Ramaswamy.

When Cleveland.com surveyed the gubernatorial candidates about marijuana policy, Ramaswamy did not provide a position. When the outlet asked candidates about expanding online gambling, Ramaswamy again remained silent.

That gambling question followed him into September. During a Statehouse News Bureau interview this week, Ramaswamy was directly asked where he stood on expanded gambling after interviewer Karen Kasler noted gambling-industry money supporting his election. Ramaswamy still did not take a position, saying only that he would “take a fresh look and a fresh perspective to this whole discussion.”

TiffinOhio.net previously documented additional unanswered questions involving Ramaswamy’s business record, campaign spending, security operation and continued ties to U.S. Rep. Max Miller.

Ramaswamy’s campaign did not respond to requests for comment for this story.

A standard that changes depending on the candidate

Acton’s decision not to debate has drawn criticism of its own. University of Akron political scientist David Cohen called the decision “political malpractice”, arguing that debates give voters an opportunity to compare candidates directly. The League of Women Voters of Ohio has similarly encouraged candidates to participate in nonpartisan candidate forums.

But that does not resolve the contradiction in Ramaswamy’s own record.

In 2023, when Trump considered avoiding his challengers, Ramaswamy said candidates who duck debates were “uncourageous.”

In 2026, when Republican Casey Putsch wanted to debate Ramaswamy, Ramaswamy never debated him.

Now Libertarian Don Kissick says he is still waiting for Ramaswamy to commit to a debate that includes him.

But when Acton declines to debate Ramaswamy, Ramaswamy says the decision proves she cannot lead Ohio.

The principle appears to depend on which side of the debate invitation Ramaswamy happens to be standing on.