COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ohio GOP-endorsed gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy has deleted his social media apps, saying they can skew his perspective. Up until now, his campaign and race have mostly been fought online.
Social media has become an essential and inexpensive tool to reach a wider audience.
"It is absolutely critical in today's day and age that somebody that wants to be successful in politics, really just influencing the conversation in any way, is involved and engaged on social media," digital consultant Tex Fischer said.
It’s a tool that Fischer knows well, as he is a social media ghostwriter for politicians and candidates. But sometimes, viewership isn’t always a good thing.
"You can also find yourself on the wrong side of an echo chamber, and you're just, essentially, being harassed," he said.
The key is having a thick skin, which he knows since he is also a Republican state lawmaker who has faced backlash. He also said people need to know when to put their phones down.
That is what Ramaswamy is doing.
In his Wall Street Journal opinion piece, he announced that he was deleting social media from his phone, saying, 'It’s too easy to get a distorted sense of the public’s concerns."
He wrote that it has “coordinated influence that hides behind armies of avatars, creating a false impression of grassroots support,” which can skew his beliefs on what Ohioans care about.
RELATED: Ohio Senate President Rob McColley tapped as Vivek Ramaswamy’s running mate
"Remember the context of people might be really mad about something and they don't even live in Ohio," Fischer said.
But in a December piece for the New York Times, Ramaswamy condemned the massive amount of racism he faces, saying, "My social media feeds are littered with hundreds of slurs, most from accounts that I don’t recognize."
Democratic candidate Amy Acton has also faced a significant amount of antisemitic comments both online and in person back when she was the COVID-era health director. She frequently faced protestors outside her home. Still, she didn’t regret being public.
"I'm incredibly proud of the work that Governor DeWine and I did," Acton told us in a previous interview.
Critics online, with a large majority being from Republican-affiliated accounts, argued that Ramaswamy just couldn’t stop making mistakes, citing a post he made that has become key to Acton’s campaign.
"My opponent said we are lazy and mediocre and not working hard enough," Acton said.
His post on X, formerly known as Twitter, from late 2024 said that tech companies wanted foreign-born engineers over citizens of the U.S. because "American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence for way too long."
He continued that instead of "chillin," "hanging out at the mall," or watching TV, people needed to be participating in more intellectually stimulating activities.
"Trump’s election hopefully marks the beginning of a new golden era in America, but only if our culture fully wakes up," Ramaswamy wrote. "A culture that once again prioritizes achievement over normalcy; excellence over mediocrity; nerdiness over conformity; hard work over laziness."
Acton's campaign addressed his departure on Tuesday.
"Turns out calling Ohioans lazy and mediocre doesn’t go over very well,” Acton's spokesperson, Addie Bullock, said.
Another post that garnered mass negative attention was when he posted a video on the app Threads saying that school should be year-round and until 4 p.m., which could help solve the childcare crisis. He later pulled the clip down.
Fischer said scrutiny comes quickly.
"None of us are immune to making mistakes or slipping up or saying things that maybe we don't need to say or maybe ideas that aren't fully vetted," Fischer said.
Ramaswamy's campaign will still be posting on his behalf; he just won't be the one scrolling, he said.
Fischer says the best way to treat social media is in "a mindful and balanced way."
How long will this last? Only time will tell.
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