Republicans Hammer Amy Acton’s Role During Pandemic, Associate Her With Fauci

As Election Day approaches, Republicans have been going after Dr. Amy Acton for the role she played in lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In a video clip posted to X by her challengers in Ohio’s gubernatorial race, Acton states she “had this feeling in my gut of holding Ohio in my arms.” She then gestures a hug to the state and adds, “Be gone virus, stay out.”

Ohio Senate President Rob McColley, the running mate of Republican gubernatorial nominee Vivek Ramaswamy, reposted the video, saying Ohioans suffered harm during the pandemic from Acton’s decisions as the state’s health director.

The Ohio Republican Party likewise reposted the video, and the Republican Governors Association also seized upon the moment to criticize Acton.

“Amy Acton wasn’t ‘holding Ohio in her arms,’ she was blindly following Dr. [Anthony] Fauci’s failed playbook,” Kollin Crompton, Republican Governors Association communications director, said.

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“It takes an incredible ego to believe you deserve credit for carrying an entire state through COVID,” he added. “Ohio families remember the lockdowns, the school closures, and the damage those policies caused. They deserve better than someone trying to rewrite that history.”

The Acton campaign did not return the Daily Signal’s request for comment.

The Fauci Connection

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has been in the news. The “Fauci Diaries” were released through congressional subpoena power ahead of Wednesday’s hearing with the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.

“[Fauci] stored his personal journal entries, like, in Word documents on federal servers,” Tony Kinnet, host of “The Tony Kinnett Cast,” said on his program Tuesday.

He added that Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had a team that “located them after an eight-month search across 11 separate government servers where they had been stored.”

Republicans in Ohio are taking Fauci’s return to Congress to remind voters that the COVID-19 restrictions imposed by government health leaders, including Acton, had many negative consequences.

“On one hand, you can have liberty, on the other, you can have lockdowns. We can choose freedom, or we can go with Fauci,” Ohio Senate candidate Zac Haines said earlier this month, lamenting the lockdowns.

Acton’s association with Fauci isn’t new. A lengthy Politico article about the Ohio Democrat from last summer asked, “Can ‘Ohio’s Anthony Fauci’ Beat Vivek Ramaswamy?” Also, in a 2024 appearance on “The Sound of Ideas,” a program by Ideastream Public Media, Acton praised the man who led America’s response to COVID-19: “Dr. Fauci is also someone I would call a hero,” she said.