The white suit Gov.-elect Amy Acton wore to deliver her victory speech on election night was made in Columbus. The Columbus Dispatch reported on Thursday, Nov. 5, that the suit came from Pursuit, the custom clothing company based in the Short North Arts District, putting a hometown business at the center of one of the most photographed moments of Ohio’s 2026 election.
Pursuit founder and CEO Nate DeMars shared a video on social media of Acton stepping up to the podium in the suit, The Columbus Dispatch reported. “History! Perhaps the most special suit we’ve made in our 15 years as our dear friend Dr. Amy Acton became Ohio’s first female governor-elect and we got to be in the middle of it all on this historic night. Such an honor. So proud of Dr. Amy & her amazing team,” DeMars wrote in the post, according to The Columbus Dispatch.
Acton, the former Ohio Department of Health director, defeated Republican Vivek Ramaswamy in the Nov. 3 general election, according to unofficial results reported by the Associated Press and the Ohio Secretary of State’s office. Her Columbus victory speech produced one of the race’s defining images — and, once the maker was identified, a local angle hiding in plain sight.
Pursuit sells custom suits, separates, tuxedos, shirts, overcoats and denim by appointment at its shop at 937 N. High St. in the Short North, according to The Columbus Dispatch. Appointments can be booked through the company’s website, pursuityourself.com, or by calling 614-321-SUIT, The Dispatch reported. The shop sits beneath the neighborhood’s signature arches.
The company behind the governor-elect’s suit began as a classroom idea. DeMars launched Pursuit in 2011, when the business started as a class project during his time as an MBA student at Ohio State University, Columbus CEO reported. In a Q&A published by Ohio State’s Fisher College of Business, DeMars said the idea came from an entrepreneurship class in his final MBA year, that he graduated in June 2011 and opened the business that October.
Pursuit later moved from the campus area to the Short North, opening at its North High Street location in 2015, according to The Lantern, Ohio State’s student newspaper. From that storefront, the company built a client list well beyond walk-in customers. According to its website, as reported by The Columbus Dispatch, Pursuit partners with well-known central Ohio names including the Ohio State Buckeyes’ offensive line, the Columbus Crew and the Columbus Fury women’s professional volleyball team.
The election-night spotlight also lands on a part of the business that has little to do with politics. On New Year’s Day in 2024, DeMars launched the [Good] Intentions program to use the shop to give back, Columbus CEO reported in a Winter 2026 profile of the initiative. After years of taking part in fundraisers and silent auctions for nonprofits, DeMars set out to reach people who could not afford a suit of their own, including people who are incarcerated or overcoming addiction, according to Columbus CEO.
“The power of the suit and the symbolism for folks that otherwise couldn’t afford it or never would dream of it is so much more impactful,” DeMars told Columbus CEO. A suit given away, he told the magazine, can carry significantly more emotional value for the person receiving it than the cash value of a donation to a nonprofit.
To build the program, Pursuit began selling gift cards and recruiting nonprofit partners, Columbus CEO reported. In its first two years, [Good] Intentions worked with the Columbus Urban League, Boys & Girls Clubs of Central Ohio, the Down Syndrome Association of Central Ohio, Goodwill Columbus and the Harmony Project, among others, to provide suits for the people those organizations serve, according to Columbus CEO. The work includes the Harmony Project’s Prison Arts program at Pickaway Correctional Institution, where custom suits were incorporated into the prison choir at the suggestion of Harmony Project founder and creative director David Brown, Columbus CEO reported.
The program’s reach is measured in fittings as well as dollars. In 2024, Pursuit served 216 people directly by fitting them in suits, DeMars told Columbus CEO. In 2025, he told the magazine, the number was closer to 40 people fitted directly, but on top of that Pursuit gave a few hundred thousand dollars’ worth of merchandise to its nonprofit partners. Looking ahead, the company has pledged to donate $50,000 of Pursuit merchandise to the cause in 2027, according to its website, as reported by The Columbus Dispatch.
For DeMars, the program has also become part of how the shop itself runs. “The feedback was, ‘This project is what lights us up and gets us through the stress,'” he told Columbus CEO, describing his team’s reaction to [Good] Intentions. “I think that was validation that this is a key component of our identity at work and not just for me.”
What happens next runs on two tracks. In state government, Acton’s election results move toward certification by county boards of elections ahead of her taking office in January, and her transition will set the agenda for the new administration. In the Short North, Pursuit returns to its appointment book at 937 N. High St. — with a governor-elect’s victory suit now on its résumé and its [Good] Intentions pledge of $50,000 in merchandise due to be carried out in 2027.