The Republican candidates for next year’s statewide races are starting to come into focus. U.S. Sen. Jon Husted, the former lieutenant governor appointed to Congress’ upper chamber by Gov. Mike DeWine, will seek election to the seat next year. Husted will have to run again in 2028 for a full six-year term should he win in 2026.

Husted likely won’t get a serious challenge in next year’s Republican primary. Husted had planned to run for governor in 2026. He wasn’t scaring off any opponents and at least three viable Republicans plan to run for governor.

Attorney General Dave Yost, who is serving his second four-year term in that position after two terms as state auditor, announced last week that he’s running for the office. Treasurer Robert Sprague filed a statement of candidacy for governor two weeks ago and doesn’t seem deterred despite a crowded field. Vivek Ramaswamy is expected to shortly announce he’s going to seek the gubernatorial seat. Ramaswamy is a wealthy biotech entrepreneur who briefly ran for president and spent a short period as co-chairman of President Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency.

Everyone wants Trump’s endorsement as his support largely helped J.D. Vance win Ohio’s Senate race in 2022, and it did the same for Bernie Moreno last year — particularly in the Republican primaries. With Trump close to Ramaswamy — though some people who advise the president aren’t big fans – and the candidate hiring those who’ve worked closely with Vance, right now he has the upper hand.

Ramaswamy’s campaign already is polling Ohio, and the results look good for him. The poll from Fabrizio, Lee & Associates, which works for Ramaswamy, of 600 likely Republican voters, conducted last Sunday and Monday by telephone, found he “holds a huge lead over his potential competitors in the Republican nomination” for governor, and he is “undoubtedly the frontrunner to win the GOP nomination.”

You always have to look skeptically at polling from one connected to a campaign, and we’re more than a year away from the Republican primary.

But the poll, with a 4% plus-or-minus margin of error, shows Ramaswamy with 52% of the vote compared to 18% for Yost and 2% for Sprague. Also, Jeremiah Workman, who unsuccessfully ran in 2022 as Republican Joe Blystone’s lieutenant governor running mate and is seeking the governor’s spot in 2026, got 1% in the poll.

Ohio Auditor Keith Faber said this week that he would run next year for attorney general. Faber, who cannot run for reelection because of the state’s term-limits law, is the heavy favorite to capture the Republican nomination — and likely beat whoever is the Democratic nominee. Before his election in 2018 to auditor, Faber spent 16 years in the state Legislature, including four as Senate president.

Republican Niraj Antani of Miamisburg, a former 10-year state legislator who has detractors in his own party, said last week he would run next year for secretary of state. He finished 10th out of 11 candidates in last year’s Republican primary for the open 2nd Congressional District seat.

State Sen. Theresa Gavarone, R-Bowling Green, is almost definitely going to run for secretary of state too. Gavarone has been heavily involved in sponsoring voting laws and sits on the Ohio Ballot Board, which writes the language for ballot issues. Critics have said the Republican-controlled board went out of its way to write language that doesn’t accurately describe ballot issues.

No Republican has declared yet for auditor, treasurer or the one Ohio Supreme Court seat on next year’s ballot. That judicial seat is held by Jennifer Brunner, the court’s lone Democrat. On the Democratic side, Dr. Amy Acton is running for governor. She isn’t likely to get any serious opposition in her party’s primary.

Acton is best known as DeWine’s health director during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, which had her on statewide television on a daily basis explaining the pandemic and precautions to take. Acton, a Youngstown native, also drew anger from those upset by the restrictions put in place during that time. The only other Democrat to announce for next year’s election is Bryan Hambley, a cancer doctor who’s never run for elected office before. He gained national attention in 2016 when he was thrown out of a Trump rally for protesting.

Brunner, a former secretary of state, will likely run for reelection to the Supreme Court. That leaves a lot of statewide seats without any Democrats announcing their candidacy. While there is still plenty of time, Democrats haven’t won a statewide executive branch seat since 2008, and Ohio has been a solid Republican state for more than a decade.

David Skolnick is a political writer for the Youngstown Vindicator and Warren Tribune-Chronicle, sister Ogden newspapers with the Columbiana Country newspapers. He can be reached at: dskolnick@tribtoday.com