Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine has appointed his lieutenant governor, Jon Husted, to the Senate seat recently vacated by Vice President-elect JD Vance.
"I have worked with him, I have seen him. I know his knowledge of Ohio. I know his heart. I know what he cares about. I know his skills," DeWine said at a Friday news conference from the Ohio Statehouse in Columbus. "All of that tells me he is the right person for this job."
Word of Husted's selection began trickling out Friday morning, after it became clear that DeWine would announce his choice at an afternoon news conference. Signal Ohio first reported that DeWine had settled on Husted, and two sources with knowledge of the decision confirmed it to NBC News.
"This decision was not made lightly," Husted said while standing alongside his wife, Tina, and DeWine. "My family and I listened to the advice of so many people, including the governor and so many others."
Husted’s move has broader ramifications on Ohio’s political landscape, removing him from a long-planned run to succeed the term-limited DeWine as governor in 2026.
It also eases a path for biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, who has signaled interest in mounting his own campaign for governor. Ramaswamy took himself out of consideration for the Senate seat last fall, after agreeing to lead President-elect Donald Trump’s new Department of Government Efficiency alongside billionaire Elon Musk. But Ramaswamy, who lives in the Columbus area, resurfaced as a late contender for the Senate appointment in recent days and met last weekend with DeWine.
“Vivek’s base plan remains [the] same,” an Ohio operative familiar with Ramaswamy’s thinking, wrote in a text message. “To get accomplishments at DOGE and then announce a run for governor shortly.”
Husted, 57, will hold the Senate seat at least through a 2026 special election to fill the remaining two years of Vance’s term. He had recently emerged as a leading contender, though there were questions about whether the post was in line with Husted's personal and political ambitions. DeWine had said appointing someone who could win a competitive Republican primary next year was among his chief considerations.
In an interview with NBC News, Husted confirmed that he will run to keep the seat. He said that he had spoken with Trump by phone Friday morning.
"He congratulated me, and I told him that he could count on me to be an ally," Husted said of Trump when asked if he believed he would have his endorsement in a GOP primary. "He is going to, I think, probably say something more about this next week. That's up to him. I'm not going to speak for him."
Husted also said he plans to vote to confirm each of Trump's Cabinet nominees.
"I think he deserves the team that he wants to lead America, and I'm going to support them," he added.
DeWine and Husted discussed the upcoming race for governor and the Senate seat in a meeting with Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort last month in Florida. Trump at the time made no commitment to endorsing Husted for either post, sources said.
A Trump spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment Friday.
Vance congratulated Husted in a post on X Friday, saying the two had spoken on the phone earlier in the day.
"Earlier today, I called Jon Husted to congratulate him on his appointment to the United States Senate. Look forward to working with both Jon and Bernie Moreno to Make America Great Again!" Vance wrote.
While Husted was DeWine’s preferred successor as governor, choosing Husted for the Senate vacancy reduces the risk that he loses a bruising primary to Ramaswamy, who would potentially bring Trump-movement cachet to the race.
And while DeWine’s decision removes a Ramaswamy rival, other prominent Republicans — including Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost and state Treasurer Robert Sprague — have been preparing their own bids for governor.
"I was planning on running for governor ... that's what I had been preparing for," Husted said in the interview, acknowledging the hard choice to pivot away from a long-held aspiration. "All of a sudden you have an opportunity to be appointed to the U.S. Senate and work in a Republican Party with Republican president, and so then I paused, and I said, 'You have to think about this.'"
Husted said would wait to see who all runs for governor before deciding if he will endorse anyone. He noted that he has "had a long, good relationship with Vivek," who informally advised him during the pandemic and served on the board for the Husted-led InnovateOhio agency.
"I look forward to hearing what his plans are," Husted added, referring to Ramaswamy.
Trump is a political force in Ohio, where he has won three times by comfortable margins. He and DeWine were on opposite sides of last year’s GOP primary for the state’s other Senate seat — a race in which DeWine backed a state lawmaker loathed by much of Trump world over Trump-endorsed businessman Bernie Moreno.
Moreno easily won the primary and went on to unseat Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown, who has not ruled out running in next year’s special election for Vance’s old seat.
Husted, a former Ohio secretary of state and state House speaker, has long been part of the state's GOP establishment. Husted also has been a loyal governing partner for DeWine, who is not always on the same page, politically, as Trump. The governor took flack from the party's right-wing base for his early vigilance and lockdown orders during the pandemic.
"I've always been a conservative," Husted replied when asked how his politics fit in with Trump's. "I've been for balanced budgets, tax cuts and school choice and Second Amendment rights and less government and returning more power to the states. So those things are all pretty traditional Republican issues that I have been dedicated to, but I also agree with where the president wants to take America and that we want to be strong again, that we want to focus on the needs of the middle-class and working people."
DeWine and Husted have been allies since they ran together in 2018. Husted had plans to seek the governorship that year, as well, but he agreed to join DeWine’s ticket as lieutenant governor.
"Gov. DeWine has seen it all," Husted said. "He's been a U.S. senator. He's been a governor and in many other roles. And so the fact that he has a high opinion of me means a lot to me. But he didn't push me in this direction. Everybody's name who you hear out there would have taken this appointment, but he offered it to me, and I said, yes, but he didn't push."
DeWine said Friday that he interviewed "a large number of people" for the Senate post and heard from many others interested in the appointment. Though he mentioned no names, others who were in the mix to succeed Vance included Sprague, former state GOP chair Jane Timken, U.S. Rep. Mike Carey and former state Rep. Jay Edwards.
