Top Democrat backs U.S. Rep Tim Ryan in U.S. Senate race

COLUMBUS » Ohio’s top elected Democrat endorsed U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan for Senate on Wednesday, an expected move aimed at further strengthening the party’s efforts to flip a key seat next year.

U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, one of the politically divided state’s most successful politicians, called Ryan a friend who “understands that all work has dignity.”

“I know Tim, and I know whose side he’s on,” the 68-year-old senior senator said. “He’s not in this for himself or for corporate special interests — he has dedicated his life to fighting for Ohioans, and their jobs and their wages and their communities.”

Ryan, 48, a 10-term representative from Ohio’s blue-collar Mahoning Valley, announced his Senate bid in April to succeed Republican Sen. Rob Portman, who is retiring.

He said his campaign is building “the strongest grassroots campaign Ohio has ever seen in order to flip this seat.”

“Sherrod has proven again and again that the way to win in Ohio is by showing up and talking to workers, and that’s exactly what we’re doing in every corner of this state,” he said.

Until August, Ryan was running largely unopposed, steadily fundraising for months as a fractious race burgeoned among Portman’s fellow Republicans. That’s when consumer protection attorney and former congressional candidate Morgan Harper, a Black woman running to his left as a progressive, jumped into the race.

“Voters are the endorsements that matter,” Harper said in a statement Wednesday. “Those are the endorsements that I am fighting for every day. This election is about the past vs. the future. A 20-year incumbent taking money from corporations is the past. A new voice with a fresh vision for Ohio’s economy is the future.”