It looks like Tim Ryan will be staying out of the race for retiring GOP Sen. George Voinovich’s Senate seat, but he isn’t staying out of the primary war between Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner and Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher:
Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio), who mulled running for the Senate seat, will now be endorsing Fisher according to a senior Ohio Democratic source.
So it begins. Expect more movers and shakers to pick a side in the near future. One key player to keep an eye on: Sherrod Brown.
But hey, at the very least, with Ryan taking a pass on the Senate race, we won’t be seeing Capri Cafaro in Congress anytime soon.
running for Secretary of State, would you Tim? It’d only be temporary, the state’s going to need a new governor four years later.
This endorsement probably won’t carry much weight. I really like Ryan, but he’s barely known outside of Youngstown.
tend to be pretty heavily female, and Brunner has some pretty strong grassroots support. I wouldn’t bet against her.
and emily’s list doesn’t have one. we’ll see what the unions and progressive groups do.
You have to expect Capri Cafaro to run for Secretary of State, State Auditor, or be Strickland’s running mate, haha.
he would have certainly won the primary with Fisher and Brunner splitting the socially liberal vote.
Can Ken Blackwell technically run for Secretary of State again? If so we need to urge him to run.
I think Ryan would’ve been the best candidate and more importantly, the best Senator of the three.
But two statewide office holders, that’s a pretty nice slate of candidates.
I’d love to see jennifer brunner run, but I doubt she’d be able to beat 2 popular statewide elected candidates.
She is in my opinion more progressive and more electable. I don’t buy the argument that we can’t keep the SoS seat. She was unknown when she started running for SoS 4 years ago.
Although he may very well win in the general, the primary is just as important and with two statewide heavyweights like Brunner and Fischer throwing their hats in the ring, Ryan might have a huge fight on his hands if he went in too, and lose his House seat in the process.
My suggestion is he might try to wait around until 2014 to run for governor, or 2018 (when he’ll only be 45) to run for Ohio’s Senate seat if Sherrod Brown retires (he’ll be 66 then). But that’s all just speculation at this point.
Fisher has been elected statewide but with Strickland at the top of their ticket. People dont really vote for the Lt. Gov pick unless they suck which in that case they vote against them.
Brunner has been elected in her own right statewide.
This will be such a battle! Cant wait for primary night. I’ll be watching this one.