Residential electric bills ballooned statewide by 13.5% on average year-over-year in October 2026, according to Ohio’s Public Utilities Commission.
Some major and mid-sized cities, like Cleveland and Mansfield, saw increases close to or above 20%. And gas bills rose, too, by 4.8% statewide.
It’s not a shock that both the major candidates for governor, GOP nominee Vivek Ramaswamy and Democratic nominee Amy Acton, have tied these energy issues to affordability.
But each candidate diverges on the solutions to energy woes and how the environment is affected—nowhere more so than when it comes to fracking.
In 2023, Gov. Mike DeWine signed a law clearing hurdles for oil and gas firms to obtain leases to mineral rights under state lands. The GOP-majority legislature has said it was done to increase natural gas accessibility and bolster tax revenue, and Ramaswamy’s all for it.
Ramaswamy visited the well pad just outside Salt Fork State Park in Guersney County this summer.
“It’s great for nature, it’s great for our ability to enjoy our natural gifts, enjoy our state parks, while also enjoying the fruits of the natural resources that are underneath them,” Ramaswamy said in a June video posted to Facebook.
Acton has called for a moratorium on new drilling in Washington County, meanwhile, because of concerns about injection wells leaking fracking wastewater. Last month, she visited Marietta, where residents across the aisle have raised water quality concerns.
For years, Ohio has consumed more energy than it’s produced. Both candidates have said that needs to change.
“You will see me come into office with a robust, an all of the above energy strategy,” Acton said in Marietta. “Oil and gas are a big part of the economy of this part of the state, and we know how to do it right.”
And Ramaswamy said in a Statehouse News Bureau interview last month he wants Ohio to embrace advances in nuclear energy, too, like through fuel recycling.
“Rather than worrying about burying or storing nuclear waste, instead use that as fuel in a different reactor,” Ramaswamy said. “That’s the direction of the future, and I want to take Ohio to that future, but we are only going to do it on terms that actually leave local communities and residents better off.”
The next governor will have to make decisions early on about the future of H2Ohio, the state’s multi-agency clean water initiative DeWine established during his first term.
H2Ohio has undergone extensive work on Lake Erie and on wetlands elsewhere, but water quality scientists say the full results will take years to show their effectiveness, and the final version of the most recent two-year state budget gutted funding to it.
Both candidates have voiced some level of backing for it. Each of them mentioned their views on the Ohio Farm Bureau Podcast earlier this year, with Acton saying that she’d like to see increased funding.
“The governor had me involved in H2Ohio from the beginning. I would like to see it funded more, and we’ve seen the results of it,” Acton said.
On these issues and others, whoever is elected will have to work with the GOP-majority legislature to get anything done.
