Until Husted, of Upper Arlington, accepted the Senate appointment, it seemed certain he’d seek 2026’s GOP gubernatorial nomination, likely vying for it with fellow Republican David Yost, Ohio’s attorney general, who announced Thursday he’s running for governor.
Yost, age 68, earlier Ohio’s state auditor, before that, Delaware County’s auditor and prosecuting attorney, is a master of self-promotion. Yost – though not to be underestimated – likely deterred then-Lt. Gov. Husted less from running for governor than did another Republican, Cincinnati-born biotech tycoon Vivek Ramaswamy, who’s expected to soon announce his own gubernatorial quest.
Also seeking the GOP’s gubernatorial nod is State Treasurer Robert C. Sprague, of Findlay, a member of Hancock County’s Cole family, long-standing Republican stalwarts who’ve included two congressmen (in 1919, one of them among the American Legion’s founders) and former Ohio House member and appellate judge Ralph D. Cole Jr.
Ramaswamy, age 39, of Upper Arlington, a graduate of Harvard College and Yale law school, sought last year’s GOP’s 2024 presidential nomination, but ended up backing Donald J. Trump.
With fellow Trump satellite, South Africa-born billionaire Elon Musk, Ramaswamy was co-running Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency. But Ramaswamy was reportedly pushed out of DOGE after clashing with Musk.
Trump has indicated he’d endorse Ramaswamy for governor. Trump’s endorsement of Vance in Ohio’s 2022 GOP senatorial primary is believed to have helped Vance clinch the Senate nomination.
Sure, there are stumbling blocks along appointed Sen. Husted’s path to winning, in November 2026, the remaining two years of Vance’s Senate term, then winning a full six-year Senate term in November 2028.
First, as previously noted, since 1914, when Ohioans started directly electing U.S. senators, governors have appointed six (men) to unexpired terms. Five failed to win election to the seat; a sixth, the GOP’s Frank B. Willis, a Lewis Center native, in what’s now suburban Columbus, had won a full Senate term in 1920 but then was picked by Gov. Harry L. Davis (once Cleveland’s mayor) to serve the couple weeks remaining in Warren Harding’s term after Harding had left the Senate in 1921 to move to the White House.
Second, though Husted hasn’t been accused of any wrongdoing in Ohio’s House Bill 6/FirstEnergy scandal, he was long politically close to the Akron electric utility, whose full-court Statehouse lobbying was as subtle as a Sherman tank rolling over a flower bed.
Ironically, returning the HB 6 mess to Ohio’s dashboard were federal racketeering indictments, announced on Jan. 17, just a few hours before DeWine made Husted a senator, of two former FirstEnergy executives, ex-President Charles E. Jones and ex-Senior Vice President Michael Dowling. (They’re presumed innocent unless proven guilty).
Maybe because Ohio voters are used to sleaze, the HB 6 scandal – which still requires Ohio ratepayers to subsidize, with millions of their dollars, old, coal-burning power plants – hasn’t seemed to ding Husted politically, or for that matter DeWine.
But given a potential three-way race for 2026’s GOP gubernatorial nomination, including likely Trump-backed Ramaswamy, and news-magnet Yost, Husted’s taking a Senate seat, then running in 2026 to keep it against a foe fielded by Ohio’s demoralized Democrats, maybe looked like a decent bet to the former University of Dayton football star. So Husted placed it.
Thomas Suddes is a former legislative reporter with The Plain Dealer in Cleveland and writes from Ohio University. You can reach him at tsuddes@gmail.com.
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