If former president Donald Trump and his vice presidential nominee pick—Ohio’s junior U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance—win the White House back in November, Gov. Mike DeWine will have a big decision on his hands.
“It will be one of the biggest decisions I will make as governor,” DeWine said Wednesday at the Ohio State Fair.
As governor, DeWine gets to select who fills the U.S. Senate seat Vance would vacate. Trump announced Vance as his running mate last Monday on Truth Social during the RNC in Milwaukee, writing it came “after lengthy deliberation and thought, and considering the tremendous talents of many others.”
But lists of potential candidates were circulating among state political circles even before Trump cut the vice president guesswork, but DeWine said Wednesday he doesn’t have a shortlist yet.
“I've obviously been contacted by people who have ideas about who should be the next senator,” DeWine said. “And my answer I send back to them always is, ‘Look, we have to win an election first and Trump has to be elected president before any of that will take place.’”
DeWine has since hammered out the criteria, though.
He said he's looking for someone who wants to serve for more than one term and someone who can win partisan primaries and general elections—and win more than once, in 2026. After DeWine's appointment of them in 2024, they'd have to run in 2026 and 2028 just to retain the seat beyond Vance's original term.
“I'm not interested in a placeholder. I'm not interested in someone going to go into Washington for two years,” DeWine said.
DeWine “doesn't care” whether that person has regular hits on talk television. “What I do care about is their their productivity in the United States Senate,” he said.
Just two of the wide-ranging possibilities politicos have floated include Sen. Matt Dolan (R-Chagrin Falls), who DeWine endorsed in the primary against Bernie Moreno, and former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy. Fellow state executives, including Lt. Gov. Jon Husted and Attorney General Dave Yost, may be viable candidates, too.
