Billionaire and former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, who’s running as a Republican for Governor of Ohio, was asked by a reporter at a food drive in Dayton this weekend what he would do to combat childhood hunger in the Buckeye State.
Ramaswamy replied: “I think one place to start, so it’s not a one-size-fits-all solution, but I believe in practical solutions, one place to actually start is school. You think about school, chronic absenteeism is now a major problem, hitting 25 percent in certain parts of our state, childhood hunger and getting a better education and feeding those kids all go together at the same time. Physical education, health, childhood health, I’m not saying fixing the schools solves everything but it solves a lot.”
He added, “If every one of those kids are able to read, by the age of third grade, by 7 or 8 years old, by the end of third grade, if you’re reading, you are basically, statistically near impossible to end up in poverty.”
A reporter at the food drive in Dayton asked me about what we would do to combat childhood hunger in Ohio. Here’s what I told him. pic.twitter.com/MPYPRse8AE
— Vivek Ramaswamy (@VivekGRamaswamy) November 16, 2025
Ramaswamy, who has been endorsed by President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and fellow billionaire Elon Musk, added, “So if we can solve that on the front end, a 100 percent reading guarantee, which by the way we used to have in this state…that’s how you end childhood hunger and poverty. If you can read by the third grade, you basically are not going to end up in poverty.”
Ramaswamy’s Democratic opponent Dr. Amy Acton, former director of the Ohio Department of Health, replied: “I’ve lived poverty. I’ve seen it. Only a truly out of touch billionaire who calls Ohio workers lazy would say that it’s ‘basically statistically impossible’ to end up in those circumstances if you can read by 3rd grade. He really doesn’t understand how rigged the system is.”
Acton has described her childhood as one of “years of abuse, neglect, and a period of homelessness while living with her mother after her parents divorced.” She found more stability, she’s recounted, when she moved in with her father and attended Liberty High School.
(NOTE: Acton studied pediatrics and preventative medicine at Northeastern Ohio University School of Medicine, and received a masters degree in public health from The Ohio State University, where she later became a professor. In 2019, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine, a Republican, selected Acton as his Director of Ohio’s Public Health Department. DeWine, who is not running for re-election due to term limits, said in August that he was not ready yet to endorse a candidate in the 2026 Ohio gubernatorial election.)