Vivek Ramaswamy Spent Nearly $700,000 in Campaign Funds on Private Plane Leases for Ohio Governor Race

Vivek Ramaswamy, the Ohio Republican gubernatorial candidate, has spent nearly $700,000 in campaign funds leasing private jets since his campaign began, according to campaign finance records reported by the Ohio Capital Journal. Reports from July 2025, January 2026, April 2026, and June 2026 show about $560,000 paid to V Leasing LLC, a company whose listed address is a house owned by Ramaswamy himself, and nearly $130,000 paid to TVPX Aircraft Solutions, based in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Federal flight records show Ramaswamy flew a private jet operated by Talon Air LLC to at least six campaign events in Ohio, Washington D.C., and Salt Lake City during April and May. Specific flights included Columbus to Port Clinton on April 7 for a campaign event in Lakeside, Columbus to Cleveland on April 8 for a Cleveland Police Patrolmen's Association event, Columbus to Youngstown on April 15 for a Fraternal Order of Police meeting at the Mahoning County Sheriff's Office, and Columbus to Cleveland on May 21 for an event in Brecksville, Cuyahoga County. Several of the Ohio flights lasted approximately 30 minutes and covered routes described as easily drivable.

David Cohen, a political science professor and director of the Applied Politics Program at the University of Akron's Bliss Institute, said he could not think of another candidate for Ohio office who had used a private jet as their primary mode of transportation for campaign events. Jordan Libowitz, vice president of communications for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, raised concerns about the V Leasing LLC arrangement, saying that if Ramaswamy is fronting money to rent a plane from himself and later reimburses himself rather than forgiving the loans, he would be using donor funds to pay himself. Campaign finance records also show Ramaswamy has loaned his campaign more than $25 million and has put more than half a million dollars on credit cards. Ramaswamy's campaign did not respond to multiple requests for comment from the Ohio Capital Journal.

This case sits at the intersection of campaign finance disclosure and private aviation leasing, where a candidate's use of chartered or leased aircraft for short, drivable routes draws attention less for the flying itself than for who profits from the lease payments. Leasing arrangements between a customer and an entity that customer controls are not unusual in business aviation, but they invite scrutiny when the funds involved come from donors or shareholders rather than the aircraft user's own pocket.

In campaign and corporate contexts alike, leasing companies and aircraft management firms structure deals to route payments through a third-party operator, such as Talon Air LLC in this instance, which provides a layer of operational separation from the ownership or leasing entity. Whether that separation satisfies finance-disclosure rules or ethics reviews depends on documentation the payer and lessor can produce, not on the leasing structure alone.

What happens next will likely turn on whether Ramaswamy's campaign responds to questions about the V Leasing LLC arrangement, and on whether the loans he has extended to his own campaign are eventually forgiven or repaid through further reimbursement. Ohio campaign finance regulators or watchdog groups may seek further documentation of the lease terms and repayment structure.