TIFFIN, Ohio — A heavily promoted Tiffin town hall featuring Republican gubernatorial nominee Vivek Ramaswamy was moved at the last minute Thursday from a Tiffin University event center capable of seating hundreds of people to a downtown party room with room for roughly 50.

The change came after State Rep. Gary Click spent nearly two weeks repeatedly promoting the Oct. 1 appearance on social media and urging supporters to attend.

Click originally advertised the 5:30 p.m. town hall for Tiffin University’s Marion Center, with the event sponsored by Click and the Seneca County Republican Central Committee.

According to Tiffin University’s event-services information, the Marion Center can accommodate up to 450 people with theater seating or 240 with banquet seating. The university also says the venue requires a minimum of 100 guests for a booking.

But Ramaswamy never took the stage there.

By Thursday, the event had been moved downtown to Reino’s Catering & Party Room, a considerably smaller room with space for roughly 50 people.

A source within the Seneca County Republican Party told TiffinOhio.net before the event that turnout was expected to be “very low.” Organizers did not publicly announce why the town hall was moved out of the much larger university venue.

The change was striking given the amount of promotion behind the event. Click had repeatedly advertised the town hall on social media in the days leading up to Ramaswamy’s visit.

When he first announced the appearance in September, Click wrote, “Please join us and help spread the word! I’m looking forward to bringing Vivek Ramaswamy to the 88th District for a Tiffin Town Hall!”

Photographs from inside Reino’s show a small group of supporters seated around restaurant tables while others, including Republican officials and event organizers, stood along the perimeter of the room.

State Sen. Bill Reineke of Tiffin spoke before Ramaswamy.

Outside, protesters gathered along the sidewalk in front of the downtown venue. One display featured a cutout of Ramaswamy alongside a previous quote attributed to him saying, “Ohio is a good state, I can’t say it’s the best state.” Other demonstrators carried signs criticizing Ramaswamy and national Republican policies.

Both Reineke and Ramaswamy acknowledged the protesters during their remarks.

Ramaswamy thanked attendees for coming despite what he called the “polite protesters” outside and later addressed the sign quoting his previous remarks about Ohio.

“We are a great state, but we still have work to do,” Ramaswamy said. “Great is not good enough.”

Most of Ramaswamy’s roughly 40-minute appearance focused on familiar campaign themes including property taxes, education, surveillance cameras, data centers and government spending.

He also sharply attacked Democratic gubernatorial nominee Amy Acton, referring to her as his “mentally absent opponent” and saying she could not “compose a full sentence in response to a question.” He told the audience they would not trust Acton in a financial position at the restaurant or another small business.

A second Ramaswamy event one hour later

Ramaswamy’s Tiffin appearance was only the first of two northwest Ohio events scheduled roughly an hour apart Thursday evening.

After leaving Tiffin, Ramaswamy traveled to Risingsun for a separate gathering organized by Coalition of Patriots II, a northwest Ohio grassroots group that identifies as constitutional conservative.

TiffinOhio.net reported Sept. 19 that the Coalition had accused Click of being “vindictive” and attempting to sabotage its Ramaswamy appearance by arranging his own town hall for the same evening, beginning one hour earlier.

The Coalition said it had arranged its event first for approximately 110 people. The group said Click was not invited and accused him of seeking his own Ramaswamy appearance after learning about its gathering.

“When Rep. Click learned he was not one of the invited, he then attempted to undermine the conservative groups meeting by trying to schedule his own meeting with the candidate the same evening,” the Coalition said in its September statement.

Click subsequently announced the Tiffin University town hall and spent the following days repeatedly promoting it.

Both events ultimately went forward Thursday, but not as originally planned.

Click’s event was moved from the Marion Center, which can hold as many as 450 people, into the roughly 50-seat Reino’s Party Room. Ramaswamy then traveled to Risingsun for the Coalition gathering.

Ramaswamy puts Risingsun in the wrong county

After the second event, Ramaswamy made a geographic mistake in a post about his visit.

He identified the Risingsun gathering as being in Seneca County.

It wasn’t.

Risingsun is a village in Wood County.

Ramaswamy had actually been in Seneca County earlier that evening for the Tiffin town hall before traveling northwest to the Coalition event.

The mistake capped an unusual night for the Republican nominee in northwest Ohio: a town hall promoted for nearly two weeks was moved from a university venue seating hundreds into a roughly 50-seat restaurant party room, protesters gathered outside, and Ramaswamy then traveled to a second gathering organized by conservatives who had publicly accused Click of trying to undermine their event.