COLUMBUS, Ohio — Jim Renacci announced today that he is running for governor of Ohio in an attempt to unseat fellow Republican Mike DeWine.
Renacci made his announcement on WTAM and released this statement to the media afterwards: “Ohioans can’t afford four more years of Mike DeWine as their governor. We have seen what failed leadership can do to a once prosperous state. DeWine’s tenure as governor will be defined as the worst period in Ohio’s long and rich history. Corruption, indictments, low job creation, shutdowns, rampant crime and more scandals—that is DeWine’s legacy. He’s more interested in being the Andrew Cuomo of Ohio rather than actually helping everyday Ohioans.”
Renacci, a former congressman from Wadsworth, briefly ran for governor in 2018 before dropping out of that race to run for the senate against Democrat Sherrod Brown.
Renacci was endorsed by former President Trump in the 2018 Ohio Senate race, which Renacci lost to Brown. The national schism between old-school Republicans who kept the former president at arm’s length, and those who embraced him openly, will likely be on display in the 2022 gubernatorial election.
DeWine has already said he would run for reelection. The governor went to great lengths during his pandemic-related press conferences to avoid besmirching the president, but on the day DeWine announced he was running in 2022, he criticized the former president for his role in the Capitol riot on January 6.
“He should have done more," DeWine said in March. "No one was happy about that day. It was one of the saddest days I’ve ever seen."
DeWine has enjoyed broad support from Ohioans throughout the pandemic as well as national acclaim for the state’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic.
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