Republican candidate for Ohio governor drops running mate 17 days before primary election

Ohio Republican gubernatorial candidate Heather Hill announced Saturday evening that she is replacing Stuart Moats as her lieutenant governor running mate, citing “irreconcilable differences” just 17 days before the May 5 primary. Moats, in his own statement Saturday, denied her allegations and called them “complete lies.”

“Due to IRRECONCILABLE DIFFERENCES the Heather Hill for Ohio Governor campaign has made the tough decision to replace Stuart Moats as my Lt. Governor running mate,” Hill wrote in a graphic posted to her campaign Facebook page Saturday evening. “We are working with the S.O.S. office to make the replacement legal and further information will be released soon.”

Hill said she will remain in the race and is not conceding.

Ohio’s early in-person voting began April 7, meaning ballots listing Hill and Moats as a joint ticket have been in voters’ hands for nearly two weeks. Hill did not say in her Saturday posts how, or whether, a new running mate could appear alongside her on ballots already cast or already printed.

In a second, longer post the same evening, Hill made specific allegations against Moats. She wrote that at a Friday campaign event, Moats “made many disrespectful comments about his wife, making our female campaign advisors uncomfortable, and leery.” She also claimed Moats had been “warned several times to stop pulling me close to him and putting his arm around me during photo shoots and videos.”

“We believe this is absolutely not a coincidence that he waited until right before the primary to pull this stunt,” Hill wrote. She did not offer specific evidence to support that characterization and did not name any outside campaign or actor in the posts.

A graphic shared by the campaign stated it “does not tolerate or support racial slurs, abusive language, insubordination, backstabbing nor business irresponsibility / violations.” Hill went on to accuse Moats of calling her the n-word.

Moats pushed back against Hill’s allegations in a separate public statement Saturday.

“Heather is attacking me on social media … doing what she does best, making up complete lies and portraying herself as a victim,” Moats said. “She has zero integrity and is a terrible person, but I’m not going to air out the details. I truly hope she seeks counseling for her delusion and mental issues.”

Hill also posted screenshots of text messages between herself and Moats. In one exchange, Hill asks Moats to justify a compensation arrangement she characterizes as “$180,000 a year plus 2% commission.” Moats replies that he is “not a fundraiser” and says he had been “bowing out” of fundraising duties because of how difficult raising money was going to be. In a later message, Moats uses an expletive telling Hill to leave him alone, calls her “delusional,” and says he is blocking her number.

Also Saturday, Moats posted a video to YouTube apologizing on behalf of the campaign for what he described as false attacks on a rival candidate.

“The campaign that I was part of really put out some falsities, some things that just simply were not true about another candidate,” Moats said in the video. “When you’re calling someone an atheist and they clearly say otherwise, who are you to continue to put that rhetoric out there?”

Moats did not name the candidate in the video. The other two Republicans on the May 5 primary ballot are biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, who is Hindu, and Tiffin native Casey Putsch, who describes himself on his campaign website as “your Christian, America First candidate for Ohio governor.”

“Our campaign has taken a lot of missteps,” Moats said in the video. “One of them is falsely accusing another candidate of some stuff that just wasn’t true. And even once it was found out to be false, it was still put out there over and over.”

Moats, a retired U.S. Air Force major who served three deployments to the Middle East, was announced as Hill’s running mate on Jan. 8. He owns and operates a tree service, co-operates a horse stable with his wife, and stars in the Prime Video and YouTube reality series “Unstable Lumberjacks.” Hill and Moats filed their joint candidacy paperwork on Feb. 3.

The Hill-Moats ticket is one of three on the Republican side of the primary ballot. Ramaswamy, running alongside Ohio Senate President Rob McColley, has been endorsed by President Donald Trump and Gov. Mike DeWine and is widely considered the race’s front-runner. Putsch is running with Warren County Republican Central Committee member Kim Georgeton.

Former state health director Dr. Amy Acton is running uncontested in the Democratic primary, with former Ohio Democratic Party Chair David Pepper as her running mate.

Hill, 49, is a Morgan County businesswoman and former Morgan Local School District board president. She has centered her campaign on abolishing Ohio’s property tax, expanding parents’ rights in education, and keeping tax breaks away from data centers. She entered the race in January 2025, briefly considered leaving the GOP in August 2025 to run as a Libertarian or with a third party, and ultimately remained in the Republican primary.

This is a developing story.