CEDARVILLE, Ohio (AP) - In the era before President Donald Trump, Republican Mike DeWine’s status as an easy favorite to win Ohio’s governor’s race would have been assured.
The 70-year-old attorney general, who announced his long-anticipated bid Sunday, is one of Ohio’s most familiar and high-profile public figures, a former U.S. senator and lieutenant governor with a big wholesome-looking family, an extensive political network and $2.5 million already banked for his campaign.
Yet it remains to be seen how DeWine’s traditional political profile will play in a national political climate upended by Trump. DeWine’s two announced Republican challengers already have employed some of Trump’s populist campaign tactics.
U.S. Rep. Jim Renacci is pushing himself as a political outsider and a businessman like Trump and has hired staffers from Trump’s presidential campaign. Secretary of State Jon Husted, despite a record of bipartisan compromise, launched his campaign with ads that tried to capitalize on divisive remarks made by Hillary Clinton during her campaign.
Cedarville University political scientist Mark Caleb Smith said, “It’s a different political world,” but predicted that DeWine will begin the race as the presumed front-runner.
“I’m not sure there’s another candidate in the race that can really exploit that (populist strategy) like a Donald Trump could,” Smith said. “They may be going full Trump stylistically, but I’m not sure it will hurt DeWine as much.”
DeWine announced his gubernatorial candidacy during his Old-Fashioned Ice Cream Social, an annual event at his historic Cedarville home in southwest Ohio. Thousands attended the event, a mainstay of summer politics in Ohio.
DeWine said he wants to use the bully pulpit of the governor’s office to ensure that Ohio children have the chance to achieve their potential with a quality education and the prospects of a good life.
He choked up when he spoke about the death of his daughter, Becky, in a 1993 traffic accident. He said losing a child causes a parent to make the most of each day.
“My promise to you is, as governor of this state, I will not waste a day. I will remember that time is precious and finite,” he said. “And when I walk into that governor’s office, I will be ready to go on Day One. I will walk through that door with a plan and I will be ready to get to work.”
Lt. Gov. Mary Taylor also is contemplating a run for the Republican nomination next year. Republican Gov. John Kasich has said he will back her if she enters the race.
Trump swiftly took control of the Ohio Republican Party after the November election, maneuvering to oust Kasich’s hand-picked leadership. The party now finds itself facing a potentially contentious primary. Husted, like DeWine, has about $2.5 million in the bank and shares DeWine’s advantage of holding a high-profile statewide office.
DeWine has spent the past seven years as attorney general almost continually in the spotlight. He has used the position of Ohio’s top cop to take on human traffickers, heroin dealers and, most recently, the pharmaceutical industry.
He said Sunday that the courage to tackle the next decade can be found in Ohio’s long history of entrepreneurial drive and unstoppable spirit.
“We grow things, we make things, and we know how to sell things,” DeWine said.
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