by Rebecca Downs
Ohio is making changes in many waysespecially when it comes to opportunity. That’s the impression you might get from Republican Speaker Matt Huffman of the Ohio General Assembly. Huffman was the recipient of the 2025 Taxpayer Torch Award from the Ohio chapter of Americans for Prosperity, with The Daily Signal present.
“Several years ago, we set out to elevate Ohio’s legislators, believing that strong, principled legislators would elevate the quality of leadership across the state. Today, that vision is becoming a reality” – Donovan O’Neil, State Director for AFP-Ohiohe said Daily signal on Tuesday. ” Taxpayer’s Torch Award celebrates bold, conservative leadership – those who stand forceful for reform and achieve real results. It honors policymakers who airy the path to a more free and prosperous Ohio.”
Last night we re-launched the Taxpayer’s Torch Award 🔥
Congratulations to the announcer @matthuffman1 — The 2025 recipient of the award — for expanding educational opportunities, increasing tax credits and driving real reform for Ohio families. @OHRGOPCaucus @AFPhq pic.twitter.com/7eXLZN0Rp2
— AFPOhio (@AfpOhio) October 15, 2025
Before he received the award, Huffman spoke to Daily signal. While acknowledging “a lot of the things we have done,” the speaker mentioned that they are “just a step away” and beyond in terms of opportunities for the Buckeye State. That includes technology, but also “sensible regulation” that can lend a hand farmers, as well as those in the oil and gas industry, “be more productive.”
Huffman not only praised Ohio for “always having cheap water, cheap electricity and good geography,” but also pointed to the role House Bill 15the groundbreaking energy reform law that came into force in August. As the speaker put it, the act “created a free energy market.” In his acceptance speech, he further mentioned that Ohio now has “free market energy and people can build and design their own power plants.”
The speaker also managed to present tax reform in an engaging and easy-to-understand way, explaining why “people who come in and work on things” like data centers “have a lower flat tax rate.” Ohio is actually growing, rather than losing population, especially in the 25-44 age bracket, which Huffman says has to do with lower taxes and is therefore “pretty optimistic.”
While there have been recent successes, Huffman also pointed to getting rid of the estate tax in 2013 as “one of the reasons we’ve been successful.”
“We went from a 9% income tax to a 2.75% income tax,” Huffman said, giving another example of how a lower tax rate has helped Ohio.
As Huffman delved into in his talk, the result of such opportunities is transformation. “Ohio, and I think in some ways the Ohio Republican Party, has been in a transition from the late 1970s to the 1980s, when we were a state that raised taxes because we saw what we wanted to do,” he offered. But in the 1990s, taxes “were really crushing the state in terms of economic performance and the number of people leaving.”
“The Republican Party began to realize that this was the problem, and our mission was not, ‘How do we pay for more things, but how do we let the free market work? How do we allow individuals to create more things,'” Huffman continued. To applause, he described the flat tax achieved in the budget as “monumental”, especially “given where we were.” He later called the budget “the most significant budget we have.”
Huffman also drew attention to the development of data centers. This comes on top of Intel’s promise to build a factory in Ohio, which will likely get back on track after the Trump administration signed a contract with Intel in August. After Senator Bernie Moreno of Ohio began looking for answers about Intel’s plans, the company indicated remains associated with the plant in Ohio.
Moreno also recently shared by X more news about other companies, in this case Whirlpool, investing in Ohio. The senator expressed his appreciation for President Donald Trump.
Great news for Ohio! Politicians have allowed states like Ohio to depopulate for decades by sending jobs overseas in search of economical labor. Thanks to President Trump, manufacturing is coming back to America and workers are winning.
The “experts” in DC have been proven wrong time and time again. pic.twitter.com/NOppoIkCvQ
— Bernie Moreno (@berniemoreno) October 15, 2025
There’s also the issue of supporting Trump’s vision – AFP-Ohio’s O’Neil sees a similarity between the 2024 federal elections and Ohio’s. “Overall, what the Republican majority in the statehouse is doing closely reflects the priorities of the new Republican majority elected in 2024.” – he said.
O’Neil not only praised that “Ohio is winning” with “lower taxes, less regulation and greater freedom for parents to choose the best education for their children,” but also applied it to efforts at the federal level.
“The Ohio General Assembly has already implemented much of this vision. In a similar way, the Trump administration, thanks to the work of Speaker [Mike] Johnson and the leader [John] Thune, helped advance prosperity by signing the Working Families Tax Cuts Act, making the middle-class tax credit lasting in 2017.” – O’Neil continued. “These efforts, combined with ongoing work to cut red tape and reduce federal spending, are pointing us in the right direction.”
Huffman similarly praised the General Assembly. He concluded his speech by saying that “this year’s Ohio House Republican Caucus deserves this award because they have truly come together and shown that we are a conservative, free-market, free-thinking group of people that can get it done.”
Others are also promoting Ohio’s economic successes, especially when it comes to “One Big Beautiful Act.” Before Huffman took the podium to accept the award, a video montage appeared featuring previous winners, including: Late. Jon Husted, Ohio. He recalled the key provisions of One Big, Beautiful Act, including: no tip tax or overtime tax.
“The bill’s passage provides a degree of certainty and transparency to federal policy, which is a significant positive. Companies consistently emphasize that predictability is key to effective planning,” Huffman also talked about one large, attractive bill. “While the bill includes tax cuts and a number of other provisions, the most important aspect may be the federal government taking action. That in itself sends a strong signal of direction and stability.”
Ohio’s transformation is not happening in a vacuum. President Donald Trump, now in his second term, remains a decisive force in American politics – especially in Ohio, where his push for deregulation, reshoring and energy independence continues to resonate. Many of the state’s recent political victories echo Trump’s 2024 campaign themes, from empowering domestic industries to restoring American energy dominance. Among voters and lawmakers alike, the similarity between state and federal priorities has created a sense of alignment rarely seen in state-of-the-art politics.
This adjustment could play a decisive role in the 2026 election cycle. Governor Mike DeWine is term-limited, as is Vivek Ramaswamy turned out to be the clear favorite in the Republican primary for governor. The state Republican Party even endorsed him in Maystrengthening its position early. Jon Husted, who was chosen by DeWine to fill the U.S. Senate seat vacated by J.D. Vance, will run to hold the seat in a special election in 2026. He faces A return offer from former senator Sherrod Brown.
Meanwhile, Democrats are looking for a candidate who can reconnect with middle-income voters outside the state’s urban centers – a challenge that has defined their recent contests in Ohio. The resulting competitions are expected to gain national attention as leaders in the power of conservative management in the post-pandemic economy.
Looking ahead, leaders like Huffman and AFP-Ohio’s Donovan O’Neil they say they see an opportunity strengthen a growth model combining lower taxes, free market energy and responsible governance. Whether this momentum continues through 2026 may depend on Republicans’ ability to translate policy outcomes into a lasting message of optimism that reminds voters that prosperity in Ohio is no longer a promise, but a work already in progress.
O’Neil ended the conversation on a practical but also sanguine note: “There is still much work to be done at both the state and federal levels, but our grassroots activists remain on the front lines, celebrating and supporting good public policy and the principled leaders driving these reforms.”
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Rebecca Downs is The Daily Signal’s Ohio correspondent. Executive Editor Tennessee Star AND Star News Network Christina Botteri contributed to this report.
Photo “Ohio House of Representatives Speaker Matt Huffman” by Rebecca Downs.
