The herd is moving.
A full 15 months before Ohio voters go to the polls for the state's 2026 gubernatorial election, the candidates are starting to thunder across the plains, stampeding toward the race to become Ohio’s 71st governor.
The long period of speculation, potential candidacies, and politicians mulling it over is coming to an end.
The stampede started Thursday when Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost, whose yearning for the governor’s office was the worst kept secret in Ohio politics, finally announced he will run for the 2026 Republican nomination.
“The bottom line is, I'm ready," Yost said in an interview with Ohio Public Radio’s Karen Kasler. "We've been preparing for this for quite some time — probably the worst-kept secret on Capitol Square — and there just wasn't any reason to wait any longer. I wanted to put my flag in the ground and start running.”
RELATED: Yost officially jumps in the GOP race for Ohio governor
Republicans and Democrats alike in Ohio politics have assumed he would run since November 2022, when he received the most votes of any Ohio attorney general in history.
Clearly, there were two factors that lit a fire under Yost to realize time’s a-wasting and that it was time to either fish or cut bait.
One was the fact that the Republican whom everyone thought would be Yost’s chief rival for the GOP gubernatorial election, former lieutenant governor Jon Husted, is now sitting on Capitol Hill as the junior U.S. Senator from Ohio, thanks to an appointment from his now-former boss, Gov. Mike DeWine.
Husted, who raises campaign money like no one else in Ohio politics, would have been a handful for Yost or any other rival in a GOP gubernatorial primary,
Secondly, Yost could see that very soon — maybe before the calendar turns from January to February — the Republican field of candidates is going to grow.
Vivek Ramaswamy, the Cincinnati native and billionaire entrepreneur, was passed over for the Senate appointment and opted out of his partnership with Elon Musk in the brand-new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which will supposedly recommend massive budget cuts to Donald Trump, while at the same time, further Musk’s cryptocurrency business.
So now, Ramaswamy, who has never been elected to anything, says he will run for governor of Ohio instead. The formal announcement could come next week.
And Robert Sprague, who is soon to be term-limited out of his job as Ohio treasurer, is reportedly also ready to announce his campaign in short order.
ANALYSIS: Husted, Ramaswamy, and the tangled web of Ohio politics
A fourth, Heather Hill, a virtually unknown businesswoman from tiny Morgan County in eastern Ohio, is already running, with a “Hill for Governor” website and everything.
Clearly, Yost thought it best that he gets out in front of the stampede.
Yost is making for himself a path to the governor’s office that could end up being fraught with peril.
In a state that has given its electoral college votes to Donald Trump in three straight presidential elections, Yost will have to cozy up to Ohio’s MAGA voters to win a GOP primary.
In his announcement statement, Yost boasted that he “protected Ohioans’ Second Amendment rights and fought in court against the Biden administration’s open-border policies.”
“He succeeded in winning legal battles against federal overreach and won a U.S. Supreme Court decision striking down the Biden administration’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for businesses,” the Yost statement said.
All of this is music to MAGA Republicans' ears.
All well and good for a GOP primary in Ohio.
But what about the general election? Will MAGA Yost have to swing back to the center to defeat a Democratic opponent?
Much of that depends on how the 47th president’s agenda plays out. If the worst happens, if the economy were to suddenly tank under a Trump presidency, would Ohio voters develop a severe case of buyer’s remorse for helping put Trump there in the first place?
RELATED: Dr. Amy Acton files to run for Ohio governor as a Democrat in 2026
Ohio Democrats — who are likely to have their own contested primary for governor — are banking on that scenario.
As Yost was announcing his candidacy Thursday, the Ohio Democratic Party cranked out a response, saying Yost is part of the problem, not part of the solution, for Ohio.
The Democratic party hit Yost over appealing a court decision striking down Ohio’s six-week abortion ban under the abortion rights amendment Ohio voters overwhelmingly passed in Nov. 2023.
“At every turn, Yost has ignored Ohio voters at the expense of special interests and extremists in his party,” said Ohio Democratic Party spokeswoman Katie Seewer. “Now, he wants the same voters he ignored to send him to our state’s highest office.”
Yes, Dave Yost is right. Get out of the box early. Establish yourself as the frontrunner.
But there’s a downside to that. Being the frontrunner just makes you a bigger target for the opposition.
