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Ohio’s 2026 race for governor may factor into DeWine’s US Senate choice

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COLUMBUS, Ohio (Statehouse News Bureau) — With two years left in his term, Gov. Mike DeWine now faces what he said is one of the “biggest decisions” he’ll make: who does he send to the U.S. Senate in Vice President-elect JD Vance’s stead?

Gov. Mike DeWine at the Ohio State Fair speaks at a podium with his wife in the background smiling
Gov. Mike DeWine at the Ohio State Fair in July 2024. [Sarah Donaldson | Statehouse News Bureau]
A handful of Republican possibles have contacted him about the job, DeWine said, and plenty more are putting in their two cents. Also behind that curtain, though, are calculations about who might succeed DeWine in 2026. He knows who he want.

“I’ve already said Jon Husted. Based on my six years working with him, he will be a great governor,” DeWine said Thursday.

DeWine’s second-in-command isn’t the only likely contender for Ohio’s chief executive role, though. Attorney General Dave Yost doesn’t seem interested in the soon-to-be-vacant Senate seat.

“I’m an executive,” Yost said Tuesday night. “I’ve never been a legislator, and I’m not ready to end my public service but I can’t imagine going to Washington, D.C. I would not accept that appointment.”

When asked about the governor’s race on the horizon, he laughed.

“I think that we’ll be making an announcement here, once we get tonight taken care of,” Yost said.

Both men were working the crowed Tuesday night at a banquet hall in Westlake, where U.S. Sen.-elect Bernie Moreno and his most ardent backers were celebrating a big win against incumbent Sen. Sherrod Brown.

There are other possible GOP primary contenders, such as Vivek Ramaswamy—the former presidential candidate from Ohio seen as a rising star in the party. On Thursday, he said President-elect Donald Trump’s win creates plenty of “possibilities to change the country.”

“We’re obviously having discussions and they’re not going to be sorted out in the press,” Ramaswamy said Thursday.

Another possible candidate is Jane Timken, who ran against Vance in the 2022 primary. She was backed by Trump to replace Matt Borges as chair of the Ohio Republican Party when Trump took office in 2017.

DeWine will appoint a new senator to join Moreno once Vance resigns, which could be any time between now and Inauguration Day.

After a bruising election night for Democrats in Ohio, that primary field is slimmer. Amy Acton, DeWine’s former Ohio Department of Health Director, said she was thinking about it in August 2024. So far, though, nobody else has made serious noise about a possible primary bid.