'Extraordinarily toxic' midterm battle takes a violent turn at county fair: analysis

Ohio's already bitter gubernatorial race turned genuinely dangerous this weekend after a man armed with two pistols and a Taser tried to push his way toward Democratic candidate Amy Acton while she greeted supporters inside a Democratic Party tent at the Canfield Fair, billed as the state's largest county fair.

State troopers guarding Acton stopped 38-year-old Patrick Havas, a Republican who has ties to a Senate GOP campaign scandal, before he reached her. Acton wasn't hurt, but witnesses said several fairgoers were knocked over in the scramble. Havas now faces disorderly conduct and two assault charges out of Mahoning County Jail. But according to The Washington Post, the fallout was only just beginning.

Even before investigators finished piecing together what happened, right-wing influencer Laura Loomer was already telling her followers online that the whole thing was staged.

Republican Gov. Mike DeWine, who employed Acton as his health director during the pandemic, called her personally afterward and condemned the incident in blunt terms, saying, "Violence or the threat of violence at political or public events is always unacceptable."

Her GOP opponent Vivek Ramaswamy's campaign issued its own statement condemning political violence, but referred only to a vague "security incident" without ever mentioning Acton by name. Pressed directly on Loomer's hoax claims Monday, Ramaswamy sidestepped the question, saying he hadn't seen the online commentary and was simply taking the sheriff's account at face value.

That sheriff, Jerry Greene, has endorsed Ramaswamy and downplayed the confrontation, suggesting to a reporter that the suspect had mainly wanted to question Acton and had just gotten pushy about it. Witnesses told The Washington Post they never heard the man say anything at all as he approached.

The incident lands in a race already defined by ugly rhetoric. Ramaswamy has repeatedly branded Acton a socialist on the campaign trail and, in a recent speech to an Ohio gun-rights group, declared "the Second Amendment was made for times such as these" as socialism returns to America. One Ramaswamy campaign ad also blamed Acton for isolating her late mother during the pandemic, though a Cincinnati Enquirer records check found the mother actually lived in Kentucky, outside Acton's jurisdiction, and died weeks after Ohio's stay-at-home order ended.

Polls show a truly competitive race as Democrats seek to win the Ohio governor's mansion for the first time since 2006, and spending is expected to exceed $749 million.