COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — The sun hadn't set on Republican Vivek Ramaswamy's gubernatorial campaign launch in Ohio earlier this week before President Donald Trump posted his endorsement of the Cincinnati-born biotech entrepreneur and former Department of Government Efficiency co-chair.
Trump lauded the multimillionaire on his Truth Social site as “something SPECIAL,” calling him "Young, Strong, and Smart!”
“Vivek is also a very good person, who truly loves our Country," the president wrote. "He will be a GREAT Governor of Ohio, will never let you down, and has my COMPLETE AND TOTAL ENDORSEMENT!”
The timing of Trump's announcement intrigued Ohio political observers, who have watched over the past several years as his decisions to weigh in on key statewide races have gone from days before the election, to months, to now more than a year.
Robert Clegg, a long-time Republican campaign adviser in the state, said it may be meant as a message for Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost, already seeking the Republican nomination, or perhaps even for newly named Lt. Gov. Jim Tressel, a popular former Ohio State Buckeyes football coach whose future political plans are unclear.
“This is awfully early in the game, and I expected an endorsement maybe later this year — as in, like the fall, or even wait until January,” Clegg said. “I wonder if the president doesn't want to have a knock-down, drag-out primary here in Ohio.”
Trump tantalized Republican candidates in Ohio’s bruising 2022 U.S. Senate primary until just 19 days before the election, when he backed future Vice President JD Vance and pushed him over the finish line to secure the GOP nomination. Vance went on to win the general election that fall.
A year later, Trump issued his endorsement of Republican Bernie Moreno for Senate three months before the primary. Moreno went on to win both the primary and the general election.
This time around, Trump didn't wait.
His backing is expected to help Ramaswamy’s early campaign efforts as he works against skepticism over his lack of experience in statewide office in a state that’s resoundingly voted for Trump three times. In the run-up to the announcement, Ramaswamy, who unsuccessfully sought the GOP presidential nomination in 2024, had also lined up key political advisers who had helped Vance with his 2022 Senate bid, as well as the endorsements of two sitting statewide officials and well-known conservatives nationally, including Utah Sen. Mike Lee.
Still, the success rate of Trump’s endorsement in governor’s races has been mixed. In 2018, his backing helped Texas’ Greg Abbott to victory, for example, but not Wisconsin’s Scott Walker. In 2022, Trump’s endorsement helped Sarah Huckabee Sanders win the Arkansas governorship, but it didn’t help Kari Lake win Arizona’s.
Tom Zawistowski, a leader of Ohio's tea party movement, said he believes Trump's anticipated backing of Ramaswamy prompted then-Ohio Lt. Gov. Jon Husted, long viewed as the front-runner to be the state's next governor, to take an appointment to Vance's former Senate seat.
“The fact is Jon Husted could not defend against a Trump endorsement and a very highly financed opponent in Vivek,” he said. “So this is what's happening — and then, shazam, here comes Jim Tressel. Only in Ohio politics.”
Zawistowski theorized that Republican Gov. Mike DeWine selected Tressel as Husted's replacement so he'll be in the wings to run as an establishment Republican should Yost's campaign fail to take hold by summer.
Yost, who is term-limited, came out of the gate painting Ramaswamy as unreliable.
“I welcome Mr. Ramaswamy to the race for however long he sticks around," Yost said in a statement. "We’ll see if he actually stays in — Mr. Ramaswamy quit on President Trump and DOGE on Day 1, he quit on Ohio and moved his company to Texas, and he quit his presidential campaign after a devastating fourth-place finish in Iowa.”
Buckeye Freedom Fund, a super PAC supporting Yost, also has already sent out attack mailings against Ramaswamy, accusing him of standing with Trump's predecessor, President Joe Biden, a Democrat, “in allowing transgender individuals to serve in the military.” A spokesperson for Ramaswamy's campaign said when one campaign has the endorsements of Trump, Elon Musk and many other conservative leaders, “lesser campaigns have no choice except to twist words.”
Zawistowski called Tressel, who has worked both as a college football coach and a university president, an “institutionalist” and said it's likely he could raise large amounts of money from Ohio State alumni and football fans, a massive nationwide community known collectively as Buckeye Nation.
He said the state's MAGA base is thrilled with Trump, Musk and DOGE so far, but he could see opponents of the effort trying to drive both moderate Republicans and Democrats to vote for Tressel in next year's GOP primary, rather than Democratic contender Amy Acton in her party's primary.
Trying to avert such a scenario, he said, could explain why Trump jumped into the fray so quickly on Ramaswamy's behalf.
Julie Carr Smyth, The Associated Press
