Dave Yost

So Republicans are, are pouring a whole bunch of money into trying to win an election that once looked like a sure thing for them, and it really makes you wonder, if you, if you can spend nearly 100 million trying to persuade voters and still find yourself trailing, how much more money is it going to take to change voters' minds here?

How much different might things look if Donald Trump had not endorsed him and let the Republican voters of Ohio pick their candidate? Dave Yost woulda beaten Ramaswamy in an open primary without Trump interfering.

But because Trump picked him, it puts an end to play.

Yeah.

I, I'm just telling you, I covered the Ohio Republican Party State Central Committee endorsement of Vivek Ramaswamy about as far in the weeds as you, as you could.

I mean, I talked to dozens of people ahead of the vote that gave him the endorsement instead of Dave Yost.

Sidebar, I think Dave Yost is a great man.

I appreciate Dave Yost.

Dave Yost would've done a fan- fantastic job running as well.

Vivek is the guy that they chose, but that's not the point.

The point is this, John.

They misread a buy signal as a mandate.

Michael Gates, for example, is running for attorney general in California, and I want him to win.

He's a fighter.

He's been taking on Sacramento for years, and I like him a lot.

So the Republican governor defended the Democrat and the Republican nominee still can't get over 44 percent.

So what did the Ohio Republican Party put on the shelf? They endorsed Vivek 18 months before the election and cleared the field.

The attorney general, Dave Yost, dropped out 18 months later.

You don't book the wedding venue that early.

And so I guess that is maybe a key area to watch as we sort of look at the Senate race.

And I guess sort of what do you make of the temperature there, just knowing that that could be – you can even look at the abortion referendum from a couple years ago too.

That was a place where – while that was uh you know has been trending republican at presidential politics it kind of broke with sort of the rest of the republican more republican-leaning areas of the state on you know on a question like that and so you know i would assume that if brown is going to find a path to victory it's going to involve doing uh better there than he has been than republic then democrats have been doing uh besides brown at least

yeah The problem for Democrats in Ohio now is that they have this gap to make up, and it's been like this for a few years now.

I'm going to lower your costs.

Vivek Ramaswamy, meanwhile, he steamrolled through the field before his name first came up when DeWine had a choice to make about who appointed Senate, and it really came down to Vivek Ramaswamy or John Husted, and DeWine went with his guy, John Husted, and that led Ramaswamy to enter the governor's race.

There were A couple of other candidates, then Attorney General Dave Yost and Treasurer Robert Sprague, and he just steamrolled him right out of the field, got an early endorsement from Trump and the state party.

And now it's a lot closer than I think just about anyone would have predicted last year.

Before that, there was a governor who was there a long time, the Kasich-DeWine machine, and they had a candidate in mind.

I'm not saying he's part of this machine, but it was Dave Yost.

He was all lined up when Ramaswamy declared his candidacy.

And there was another guy, the lieutenant governor, that was kind of waiting in the wings.

He's a former football coach, would've been very popular in the pre-Ramaswamy race.

And when Ramaswamy came in, his polling was so spectacular that both of these candidates, the guy who hadn't entered yet said, "No interest, not running into a buzz saw." And Dave Yost, the former attorney general, he said, "Not only am I quitting the race, I'm quitting my job." And he quit [laughs] his job as AG early, and he's now working at like the American Exception Institute, which is great.

But there could be some animosity from Republicans that for, what, 16 years have been part of this Kasich-DeWine vibe, and all of a sudden they have a guy named Ramaswamy who did a hostile takeover of their party.

Tom, is there anything else on this subject or anything else you wanna share or plug before we let you go today, friend?