Gov. Mike DeWine announced his own Lt. Gov. Jon Husted as the next senator from Ohio, passing over entrepreneur and former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy.
“Jon Husted will be right at home in the United States Senate, and he’ll be at home on day one,” DeWine said Friday in a press conference at the statehouse in Columbus.
Husted, a Republican more in DeWine’s institutionalist mold, had long planned to run for governor in 2026 to succeed DeWine. His ascent to the Senate will likely scramble the field in that race.
Ramaswamy learned mid-morning Friday he would not be the pick, according to a person familiar with the discussion and granted anonymity to describe it.
DeWine’s deliberations were upended when Ramaswamy, the billionaire Columbus-area entrepreneur and co-head of the Department of Government Efficiency, made a late appeal for the vacancy. Despite insisting he was interested in running for governor in 2026, the DOGE co-chair was “lobbying like hell” for the Senate post, according to a source familiar with DeWine’s thinking.
“It was bizarre,” said this source.
A source close both to Trump world and Ramaswamy said that the Ohio billionaire enjoys the backing of the Trump family.
“They’re not supporters of DeWine,” this person, granted anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the Trump family’s behalf. “They didn’t want to see Husted in the governor race. Trump supports this.”
The governor, a former two-term senator himself, is an outspoken internationalist. And in recent years, he has openly expressed unease about his party’s drift toward the sort of isolationism Ramaswamy often voiced in his short-lived presidential bid. DeWine said he called Trump at 10 a.m. today to disclose his pick, but did not disclose their conversations.
“He’s a serious guy for very serious times,” said the source of Husted. “And nobody knows the state better.”
The seat opened officially when Vance resigned from his seat at midnight last Friday, following his ascension to the vice presidency.
Husted, a protege of the more moderate, less populist, old-school GOP DeWine, will serve through the special election in 2026. Before serving as lieutenant governor, Husted was the speaker of the Ohio House and was elected to the secretary of state.
Husted signaled a willingness to work with Trump, though, on Friday. “President Trump won Ohio by 11 points in this past election, and I will do all I can to help him and JD Vance be successful,” Husted said in his remarks Friday.
Ramaswamy, meanwhile, is expected to focus on attempting to gain some policy wins at DOGE while announcing a gubernatorial run in the coming weeks, two people familiar with his plans say.
Jonathan Martin contributed to this report.
