WASHINGTON—An armed assailant lunged at the Democratic candidate for Ohio governor, Amy Acton, on Sunday during a campaign stop at the Canfield Fair, injuring several people, campaign officials said.
The suspect knocked volunteers to the ground and was arrested with “multiple weapons,” Mahoning County Democratic Party chairman Chris Anderson said in a statement.
Acton, the state’s former public health director, was not injured, but her campaign said multiple people were hurt.
“Dr. Acton will always stand up to the chaos, hate and vitriol that pits us against one another,” said Addie Bullock, communications director for the campaign.
Ohio State Highway Patrol and other authorities at the fair quickly responded “when a man tried to forcefully push himself toward Dr. Acton as she was speaking and injured other attendees at the Mahoning County Democrat booth,” Republican Gov. Mike DeWine said in a statement.
“Violence or the threat of violence at political or public events is always unacceptable,” he added.
Acton is facing Republican Vivek Ramaswamy.
Ramaswamy’s campaign called the incident Sunday unacceptable.
“Candidates should be able to meet with voters without having to worry about threats or violence. What happened today is completely unacceptable and has no place in politics, and we hope hope that no one was hurt,” Ramaswamy’s communications director, Connie Luck, said in a statement.
The fairground’s police department referred inquiries to the Mahoning County Sheriff’s Department, which didn’t immediately return a message seeking comment. The Ohio State Highway Patrol didn’t immediately respond to a request for information.
The incident brought condemnation from Ohio Republican Sen. John Husted, who said on X that he and his wife were “disturbed by the attempted attack on Amy Acton today at the Canfield Fair. We are grateful for law enforcement’s quick response. There is no place for this kind of behavior, and it must never be tolerated.”
Before running for governor, Acton had been recruited by DeWine in 2019 to lead the Ohio Department of Health while serving as an associate professor of public health at Ohio State University.
For her service as health director, Acton earned the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation’s Profile in COVID Courage Award, the Columbus Foundation’s Spirit of Columbus Award and Ohio State’s highest alumni honor, the Alumni Medalist Award.
