Amy Acton

Subject: Amy Acton, Democratic nominee for Governor of Ohio, 2026, running with David Pepper Compiled: October 23, 2026 for the On Point Politics watchdog database, onpointpolitics.us Data cutoff: October 20, 2026. The latest state figures are the July, August and September monthly reports described on October 13, 2026. Next scheduled data drop: Ohio pre-general and post-general campaign reports, and filings by Ohioans For Lower Costs. Exact due dates were not verified in this pass.

Bottom line up front

Acton's money is the reverse of her opponent's. She has many donors, mostly in Ohio, and few large checks. Her biggest institutional backers are the Ohio Democratic Party and organized labor. In September 2026 she raised slightly more than $6 million against Vivek Ramaswamy's just over $3 million. Even so, her total donations since entering the race were still about $5 million short of the more than $36 million Ramaswamy has put in himself, per the Ohio Capital Journal on October 13, 2026, ohiocapitaljournal.com.

Three interests combine real money with a decision she would control:

1. Labor unions. The Ohio Federation of Teachers, the UAW, IBEW, the bricklayers and the firefighters back her. She has promised to keep Ohio from becoming a right to work state and to resist SB 5 style limits on bargaining. IBEW also put $1 million into the Democratic Governors Association's Ohio committee.
2. The Ohio Democratic Party and the DGA. The party gave $125,000 through 2025 and $232,000 in September 2026. The DGA built a state committee, Ohioans For Lower Costs, and planned a $9.4 million campaign.
3. Public school advocates against voucher operators. She calls the voucher system corrupt and says public money should go to public schools. That puts teachers unions on her side and Jeff Yass on the other. The decision is the 2027 budget and the pending district lawsuit against EdChoice.

A fourth area is utilities and data centers. She has promised to overhaul who sits on PUCO and to make data centers cover their own costs. Executives from Alpha Generation, Amazon and Oracle gave to her campaign, with amounts not stated, so this is a lever without a measured bloc behind it.

Committee structure and treasurer

The candidate committee is the joint Acton and Pepper ticket. Pepper is a former Ohio Democratic Party chair, Cincinnati council member and Hamilton County commissioner, per the Ohio Capital Journal on January 7, 2026, ohiocapitaljournal.com. Campaign manager Philip Stein and spokesperson Addie Bullock speak for the campaign. The committee's Ohio ID and treasurer were not verified.

The aligned outside vehicle is Ohioans For Lower Costs, a state committee the DGA created. Its only reported transaction through June 30, 2026 was $1 million from IBEW, per the Ohio Capital Journal through States Newsroom on October 20, 2026, newsfromthestates.com. The DGA did not answer questions about its spending.

Scale. Acton raised $5.3 million through December 31, 2025. She raised $5.2 million in the first quarter of 2026 and nearly $11.5 million in 2026 through mid June, when she held $8.1 million in cash, per Signal Ohio on June 18, 2026, signalohio.org. Signal Ohio reported $21.8 million for the whole campaign as the most recent public figure on August 27, 2026. Monthly reports then showed $5.8 million in July, $4 million in August and slightly more than $6 million in September. Those are not summed here, because the August figure may already include July.

Small donors

Documented. Through 2025, Ohioans gave her $4,481,043.62 from 78,694 contributors. More than 96 percent of gifts were $100 or less, and the average grassroots gift was $28, per NBC4, yahoo.com. NBC4 notes that its Ohio share of about 85 percent does not match the 70 percent her campaign cited. From January 1 to April 15, 2026 she raised $3.88 million from 55,131 Ohio donors. In September 2026 individuals gave more than $5.5 million, $3.5 million of it from Ohioans.

Large checks are rare. Innovation Ohio counted 19 donors at or above the $16,615 maximum from April 16 to June 5, 2026, including Carrie and Thomas Bevan at $48,715 combined.

Inference: A donor base this wide gives no single donor much leverage. The leverage that exists runs through institutions, meaning unions, the party and the DGA. That is where to look for asks.

Labor unions

Documented. Through 2025, large gifts came from the Ohio Federation of Teachers and the Ohio State UAW. In the first quarter of 2026 she got gifts from United Healthcare Workers East and IBEW in Columbus, per the Ohio Capital Journal on April 27, 2026, ohiocapitaljournal.com. In September 2026 the bricklayers, auto workers, teachers and firefighters unions each gave $10,000 or more. The Ohio Association of Professional Firefighters and the Ohio Patrolmen's Benevolent Association endorsed her, per Ballotpedia. IBEW gave $1 million to Ohioans For Lower Costs.

What they want. Her worker plan pledges that Ohio will never become a right to work state. It also promises to fight SB 5 style attacks on bargaining and to use the Commerce Department to enforce bargaining law and pursue wage theft, actonforgovernor.com. Her energy plan calls for union labor on brownfield data center sites, per the Ohio Capital Journal on September 23, 2026.

Inference: The asks from unions are public and line up with her platform. Union labor on data center construction is the one item that is a direct dollar benefit to a donor, here IBEW, rather than a policy position.

Party and leadership

Documented. The Ohio Democratic Party was her largest donor through 2025 at $125,000, and its state candidate fund gave $232,000 in three gifts in September 2026. The DGA planned a $9.4 million campaign starting after Labor Day, and Medium Buying projected $11.1 million in pro-Acton spending, both per Signal Ohio on August 27, 2026. AdImpact put Democratic aligned spending at about $40 million, against more than $100 million from Republican groups, as relayed by the Ohio Capital Journal on October 20, 2026. EMILY's List and the PAC for America's Future effectively maxed out in September 2026.

Hop two. Who funds the party's state candidate fund and the DGA committee, beyond the IBEW check, was not found in sources read.

Own finances and disclosure history

No net worth estimate, business ownership or Ohio Ethics Commission filing was retrieved in this pass. Ballotpedia lists her as a physician and a former Ohio State public health professor. It says she directed the Ohio Department of Health from February 26, 2019 to June 11, 2020 under Governor DeWine and helped found the nonprofit Rapid 5. Its 990 filings were not checked.

Enforcement and controversies

• No FEC, ethics commission or Election Integrity Unit complaint against Acton was found in the sources read. Searching ran out partway through this pass, so this is not a clean bill.
• Ramaswamy's campaign calls her a serial fabulist, in the statement responding to his attack ad on October 20, 2026. An Ohio Capital Journal headline of October 20, 2026 says court documents contradict the ad; that body was not read. Her campaign said standing by the ad shows who Ramaswamy is. The ad involves a family member who is not a political actor, so its content is not recorded here.
• She had not agreed to a Columbus Metropolitan Club forum as of October 15, 2026, per the Ohio Capital Journal, and an Ohio Capital Journal headline of September 4, 2026 says she refuses to debate; that body was not read.

Deal table

Levers and calendar

Calendar. The election is November 3, 2026. The new governor takes office in January 2027. The 100 day task force report would come in spring 2027. The first executive budget comes in 2027, and the right to work and bargaining fights would run through the 2027 and 2028 sessions. PUCO seats fill as terms expire.

What we could not verify

• The committee's Ohio ID and treasurer, and the ID and treasurer of Ohioans For Lower Costs.
• Union gift amounts other than IBEW's $1 million to the DGA committee.
• Names of the executives cited by role.
• Upstream funders of the DGA committee and of the party's state candidate fund.
• A Transparency USA donor and payee aggregate. The page at transparencyusa.org failed to load.
• AdImpact and Medium Buying figures, which were seen only as relayed by outlets.
• Bodies not read: nbc4i.com and ballotpedia.org and ohiocpa.com and ohiocapitaljournal.com
• Ohio Ethics Commission financial disclosures and nonprofit 990s.