CLEVELAND — Ohio Lt. Gov. Jim Tressel, a Republican and a former Ohio State football coach, confirmed Thursday that he is considering a run for governor in 2026.
Tressel, who previously said he was not thinking about a bid but stopped short of ruling one out, indicated in a statement first shared with NBC News that his thinking has changed.
“What has been a surprise, and it has been humbling, is how many people are encouraging me to run for Governor,” Tressel said in the statement, after emphasizing how much he was enjoying his current job.
“I have not decided yet, but when I became Lieutenant Governor in February, Ellen told me that it seemed like God had more work for me to do, and she was right,” Tressel added, referring to his wife. “While I have not ruled out a run for Governor — and there will be a time in the future for those conversations — for now, I will remain focused on helping Ohioans get off the sidelines and into our workforce so they can reach their full potential.”
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Tressel’s statement came ahead of a meeting Friday at which the Ohio Republican Party’s state central committee will consider issuing an early endorsement for the May 2026 primary.
Allies of Vivek Ramaswamy, a biotech entrepreneur whose candidacy for governor is backed by President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance, are pushing hard to win the endorsement over state Attorney General Dave Yost. But term-limited Gov. Mike DeWine has been calling committee members urging them to hold off, citing the possibility that other candidates could jump in the race, NBC News reported this week.
DeWine’s effort has been viewed by many party insiders as a move to keep the state party from committing advertising and organizational resources to Ramaswamy before Tressel makes a decision. The governor picked Tressel to be his deputy less than three months ago, immediately triggering speculation that he was grooming him for even higher office.
“I think he would like to forestall an endorsement taking place, because I think he would like to see if he can convince Jim Tressel to run for governor,” one Republican leader in the state said of DeWine this week.
DeWine chose Tressel in February after he appointed his previous lieutenant governor, Jon Husted, to fill the Senate vacancy Vance left when he became vice president. In a statement Tuesday, DeWine stressed that it is too soon to take sides in the race to succeed him.
“As far as who I endorse in the Republican primary for Governor, it is much too early, as we do not even know who all will be in the race,” he said. “We are now 364 days away from the primary and 293 days away from the filing deadline. In politics, this is a lifetime!”
Tressel, 72, won multiple national championships as a college football coach, first guiding the lower-division Youngstown State Penguins to four titles in the 1990s before jumping to the Big Ten and winning the 2002 national championship with the Ohio State Buckeyes in his second year as head coach there. He resigned from Ohio State in 2011 with the football program mired in controversy and an NCAA investigation involving players selling memorabilia to a tattoo parlor.
Public and internal polling has shown Ramaswamy, 39, with a sizable lead over both Yost and Tressel. An outside group supportive of Ramaswamy has already spent millions to amplify Trump’s endorsement in TV ads. And Vance has directed some of his top political advisers to help steer Ramaswamy’s campaign.
Donald Trump Jr. urged state central committee members Wednesday to ratify his father’s choice, while conceding that “early endorsements aren’t the norm.”
“We have a country to save, and we don’t have any time or money to waste,” Trump Jr. wrote in a post on X. “President Trump endorsed Vivek, in one of his very first 2026 endorsements, for a reason: We need Vivek in Ohio, and Ohio needs Vivek as its Governor.”
On the Democratic side, Dr. Amy Acton, who was DeWine’s health director in the early days of the Covid pandemic, has launched a campaign for governor. Former Sen. Sherrod Brown, who lost his Senate seat last year, and former Rep. Tim Ryan, who lost to Vance in the 2022 Senate race, are among the other Democrats considering running.
Democrats have not won the governorship in Ohio since 2006, and the state has leaned even further to the right in recent cycles, with Trump winning by comfortable margins in all three of his presidential campaigns.
