Many Ohio Democrats see former Congressman Tim Ryan as one of the few leading candidates for statewide office despite his loss to now-Vice President JD Vance in the US Senate race in 2022. Ryan now says he’s close to making a decision on whether he’ll run again and for what.
There have been a lot of hints dropped from people who know and work with Ryan that he's considering a run for Ohio governor. When asked directly if he's running for that office, Ryan replied: "I don’t know.”
But Ryan said in an interview for "The State of Ohio" that he's considering it because he's "worried about the state".
"It's become apparent in the last couple years to me, there's two Ohios," Ryan said. "There's the boom in central Ohio, which is phenomenal—to a lesser extent in Cincinnati. But the rest of the state in many ways is getting left behind. And I think we've got to have initiatives that are pushing in Youngstown and Warren and Steubenville and Toledo and Lima—these areas that have been largely forgotten."
Ryan is getting the chance to see the Republican who would likely be his opponent in action already. Tech billionaire and former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy has been campaigning for governor for months at county party events, on social media and in ads. Ramaswamy has already been endorsed by the Ohio Republican Party, though there were reports Gov. Mike DeWine wanted the party to wait and though a last-minute statement from Lt. Gov. Jim Tressel suggested he might join the race.
“We just started thinking about this, just watching things unfold and things not getting better and kind of watching the instability that's happening here. And I think it could get a lot worse," Ryan said. "I know people can be very critical of Gov. DeWine. But he's tempered a very extreme legislature. And so if you remove Mike DeWine and you put in Ramaswamy, it's a whole new ball game of of how I think radicalized the state would become. And I just don't think that's Ohio.”
Whoever leads the Democratic ticket will be the standard-bearer for a party that has lost 83% of statewide races in Ohio since 1994. A new chair will be selected next month, and Ryan seems to be backing Sen. Bill DeMora (D-Columbus), who he describes as "pretty aggressive." But Ryan adds, "I kind of think we need to be more in a fighter lane here, really letting people know we're going to advocate and fight for them."
Former U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown has backed former state rep Kathleen Clyde to lead the party following the resignation of Liz Walters earlier this month. Ryan said this doesn't put him at odds with Brown, but that party members "should be the ones who say, okay, of these candidates, here's who's going to help us move out of this spot that we're stuck in."
But Ryan agrees with other Democrats that the party's messaging has been a miss, and needs an overhaul.
"If Democrats if we don't have a complete rebrand and a refocus on economic messages, whether you're white or black or brown or gay or straight or a man or woman or you're in manufacturing or retail, then we're not gonna be able to win. Like you have to have the thrust of your message has to be economics and moving people forward," Ryan said. "We have to get back to what I think is more of like a Bill Clinton style, you know, kind of minus the NAFTA piece of that. But just you've got to work with business. You can't hate business."
Ryan has been lobbying for some industries that might pose some ideological conflicts for Democrats, such as cryptocurrency and natural gas. But Ryan defends those industries, saying natural gas has displaced coal in Ohio and employs unionized workers, and crypto has been helpful for small businesses, especially those in minority communities.
Ryan said he doesn’t have a theme or keystone idea for a potential campaign, which would likely run into the tens of millions of dollars. But he is strongly opposed to the $600 million in bonds for the Cleveland Browns stadium in Brook Park that Republicans added to the House version of the budget, which he calls "outrageous."
