MARIETTA, Ohio (WTAP) – A 2026 Ohio governor candidate spoke during the annual Reagan Day Dinner.
The Washington County Republicans held their annual Reagan Day Dinner Tuesday, Oct. 14.
The Reagan Day Dinner is a fundraising event to raise money for the local Republicans.
During the dinner Tuesday night, a few of the candidates running in the 2025 election this November spoke, along with a governor candidate for the 2026 election.
Vivek Ramaswamy was born and raised in Cincinnati, Ohio and ran for president during the 2024 election.
Earlier this year, Ramaswamy launched his campaign for the 2026 Ohio governor election.
At the dinner he talked about his goals for Ohio and the American Dream.
Ramaswamy said the American Dream is what makes this Country different from every other one.
“I’m not running to be your governor to lead Ohio just to be one of the better sates in the Midwest, because frankly, we are already one of the best states in the Midwest,” said Ramaswamy. “I’m running to be your next governor because we want to lead Ohio to be the top state in the country to raise the young family, to give your kids a world class education, to celebrate success and revive that new American family.”
He said Ohio is a great state, but great to not good enough.
“God has blessed our state with every natural gift we could wish for, to be the state that leads the United States of America back to greatness,” said Ramaswamy. “We deserve leaders who believe in our state, to actually power America’s combat, power time, hopefully with your help, including Washington County.”
Ramaswamy proposed sweeping education reforms, including reinstating Ohio’s third grade reading guarantee and requiring high school seniors to pass the same civics test required for citizenship.
He said students must be able to read by third grade or they won’t advance to fourth grade.
“If you never make that transition from learning to read to reading to learn, then your chance of achieving success in life falls like a rock off a cliff,” said Ramaswamy.
The speech concluded with a call for unity, sharing a story about inviting a protesting Vietnam War veteran into the event who later said Republicans had changed her perspective.
“We don’t play according to the other side’s rules,” said Ramaswamy. “We hold ourselves to the standards that our founding fathers held us to.”
Read more on https://www.wtap.com
