Husted makes it official: He’s running
Jon Husted acknowledged his longtime ambition this morning with a tweet and an online video: He is running for governor.
Ohio’s two-term secretary of state and former speaker of the Ohio House of Representatives formally announced his candidacy for
the Republican nomination a year before the 2018 primary.
In the video shot in his hometown of Montpelier, west of Toledo, Husted recalls the origins of his conservatism. He talks of knowing tough times. His family had to move after his adoptive father lost his job of 25 years when the factory was sold and closed.
“Ohio needs a governor who knows what it’s like to struggle to pay the bills,” Husted says. “A governor who’ll fight with everything he’s got for working families. A governor with a real plan for better-paying jobs and the determination to get it done.”
With all statewide executive officeholders being ousted by term limits, Husted faces a crowded GOP field that includes Lt. Gov. Mary Taylor and U.S. Rep. Jim Renacci of Wadsworth. The early
“Ohio needs a governor who knows what it’s like to struggle to pay the bills. A governor who’ll fi ght with everything he’s got for working families.” favorite, Attorney General Mike DeWine, is expected to announce his candidacy soon.
Husted became a Donald Trump supporter once Gov. John Kasich — a Taylor supporter — dropped out of the presidential race, speaking on the undercard at Trump rallies.
The 49-year-old’s campaign slogan: “Ohio’s future.” In closing his video, Husted says: “It’s time for new ideas and a new generation of leadership” — perhaps a poke at the 70-year-old DeWine, a former U.S. senator who has held elective office for all but four years since 1977.
Husted appears in several scenes of his announcement video handling guns. “As Barack Obama said, folks here cling to our religion and our guns, and there’s no doubt my family would firmly fit in Hillary Clinton’s basket of deplorables. And we’re proud of it,” he says.
As Ohio’s chief elections officer, Husted has attracted criticism, and lawsuits, over what Democrats portrayed as moves to limit the voting rights of African-Americans and others. Husted has replied that he has only enforced state laws while making it “easy to vote and hard to cheat in Ohio.”
Husted was not made available for interviews before Monday, when he begins a four-day, 10-stop statewide tour. It starts Monday morning at the University of Dayton, where Husted earned bachelor’s and
master’s degrees and was an All-America defensive back on the Flyers’ Division III national championship football team in 1989.
A father of three, Husted served as vicepresident for economic development for the Dayton Area Chamber of Commerce before entering politics in 2001. He served eight years in the House (saying he helped enact sizable income-tax cuts and fiscally conservative budgets as the two-term speaker) before two years in the Senate.
Both DeWine and Husted had $2.5 million in campaign cash in the bank at the end of last year as the early fundraising leaders. Democratic candidates for governor now include state Sen. Joe Schiavoni of Boardman, former U.S. Rep. Betty Sutton of Copley and former state Rep. Connie Pillich of Montgomery.