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Ohio Lt. Gov. Jon Husted will succeed JD Vance in the US Senate

[January 18, 2025] By JULIE CARR SMYTH and STEPHEN GROVES

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Republican Ohio Lt. Gov. Jon Husted will succeed Vice President-elect JD Vance in the U.S. Senate, the state's governor announced Friday.

Gov. Mike DeWine’s decision ends months of jockeying among top Ohio Republicans for the coveted seat, which Vance had held for less than two years before resigning Jan. 10. Choosing Husted removes at least one top contender from the 2026 governor's race, but DeWine said he still expects the field to be crowded.

He said a large consideration was that his long-serving righthand man has extensive government experience that Ohio's last two U.S. senators — Vance and Cleveland businessman Bernie Moreno, both political novices when elected — lacked.

The 57-year-old Husted is a former Ohio House speaker, state senator and two-term Ohio secretary of state. He has been lieutenant governor since 2019. Husted will serve until Dec. 15, 2026. A special election for the last two years of Vance’s six-year term will be held in November 2026.

Standing next to Husted, DeWine called him a trusted partner on key decisions.

“I have worked with him, I have seen him, I know his knowledge of Ohio,” DeWine said. “I know his heart. I know what he cares about. I know his skills. And all of that tells me that he is the right person for this job.”

Husted had a reputation for bipartisanship when he led the Ohio House. He said Friday that he would work to find common ground in Washington, but he also vowed to support President-elect Donald Trump's agenda wholeheartedly, including voting in favor of all his Cabinet appointees.

Flanked by his wife, Tina, and his three children, Husted at times grew tearful in accepting DeWine's appointment, noting how much he has loved his work in state government these past 20-plus years.

“My time here at the Statehouse has been a true joy, but representing Ohio in the U.S. Senate is an amazing opportunity,” he said. “I mean it is amazing, and it is something that an adopted kid who grew up on County Road J in Montpelier, Ohio, could have never imagined.”

DeWine, himself a former U.S. senator, called it one of the two best jobs after president in politics, alongside governor. Husted said he wasn't even imagining he would replace Vance when he gave his nomination speech at this summer's Republican National Convention. It is the third time in as many years that Ohio has had a Senate seat available.

The governor was inundated with requests for consideration, including from several people who had sought the seat and lost in recent elections, two statewide officeholders and those outside government.

Former GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, a biotech entrepreneur from Cincinnati who is co-leading Trump's government efficiency initiative, scrambled the Senate field further in recent days when he visited DeWine to express his interest in the seat.

But DeWine, who has at times parted ways with Trump, ultimately defaulted to a person who he said has deep knowledge of the complexities of Ohio — the nation's seventh largest state, with vast rural areas, numerous big cities and a portion of Appalachia — as well as a solid grasp on how the federal and state governments work together.

DeWine made two trips to Mar-a-Lago in the weeks leading up to his decision. Both DeWine and Husted said they had spoken to Trump on Friday morning and that he had kind things to say.

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Lt. Governor Jon Husted gives a thumbs up in the Ohio House chambers at the Ohio Statehouse, April 10, 2024 in Columbus. (Barbara J. Perenic /The Columbus Dispatch via AP, File)

Any hope that choosing Husted might help avert a Republican faceoff for governor in 2026 — when he and Attorney General Dave Yost were already positioning to run — was met instead with an immediate behind-the-scenes elbowing for position for Ohio's highest state-level elective office. That includes by Ramaswamy, who could announce a bid any time, and Ohio Treasurer Robert Sprague, who filed paperwork Friday to seek the office.

But Husted was considered the early front-runner for governor, given his fundraising and efforts to put together a campaign organization. Yost, meanwhile, had said he would decline the Senate appointment if DeWine offered it to him.

It’s possible that the special election for the remainder of Vance’s unexpired term in November 2026 provides a comeback opportunity for former U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, who was unseated by Moreno in November. During his final Senate speech on Dec. 17, Brown said it would not be the last time Ohioans would hear from him.

It was considered a possibility that Brown would run for governor, but it appears he has gotten behind former Health Director Amy Acton's gubernatorial bid, launched earlier this month.

DeWine made it clear ahead of time that he wanted the Republican he chose for the Senate to be well positioned to defeat whomever the Democrats run statewide in 2026 and then again for the full Senate term that comes up in 2028.

Husted said he is prepared to do so, and he has a track record. He successfully ran twice for Ohio secretary of state, the state’s elections chief, and twice as lieutenant governor. In fact, his strength as a statewide candidate was a key factor in DeWine putting him on his ticket in 2018, merging Husted’s own governor’s campaign with his own.

Still, DeWine called the ordeal of two back-to-back elections “not for the faint-hearted.” Last year's contest between Brown and Moreno was the most expensive in the nation, surpassing $400 million spent by campaigns and outside groups.

Democrats foreshadowed Friday that Husted won't get an easy ride.

State Chair Elizabeth Walters' reaction suggested that Husted's as-yet-unresolved ties to what's been described as the largest corruption scheme in state history will certainly become a campaign issue. Husted has not been accused of wrongdoing. However, a request for his documents and his deposition have been included in an investors' lawsuit inspired by the federal investigation, which resulted in new indictments again Friday.

“While Governor DeWine may have handed Husted a literal get-out-of-jail-free card, Ohioans won't tolerate a career politician with a penchant for corruption and scandal,” Walters said in a statement. “It's already clear we can't trust Husted. Over the next two years, Democrats will work tirelessly to hold Husted accountable and will be contesting this competitive seat in the midterm election.”

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