Vice President JD Vance’s political team, including two top advisors, are joining Vivek Ramaswamy’s soon-to-be announced 2026 Ohio gubernatorial run, a source with knowledge confirmed to Fox News.
The news follows conversations between Ramaswamy and Vance, who until he stepped down earlier this month to assume the vice presidency was a senator from Ohio, added the operative, who asked to remain anonymous to speak more freely.
Ramaswamy, a multimillionaire biotech entrepreneur and former Republican presidential candidate, for weeks has been putting the pieces together to launch a gubernatorial campaign in the race to succeed GOP Gov. Mike DeWine of Ohio, who is term-limited and cannot seek re-election.
“Expect Vivek to announce his candidacy in mid-February,” the source told Fox News.
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Vivek Ramaswamy and Kristi Noem applaud during President Donald Trump’s inauguration at the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 20, 2025. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters/Pool)
Ramaswamy was among the contenders who challenged President Donald Trump for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination before dropping out of the race and becoming a top Trump ally and surrogate.
The two Vance advisors are Andy Surabian and Jai Chabria, who played major roles in Vance’s 2022 Senate race and in his vice presidential campaign last summer and autumn, after Trump named the first-term senator as his running mate.
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The Ohio-based Chabria, a veteran in Buckeye State politics, is expected to serve as the Ramaswamy campaign’s general consultant.
Surabian, who is also a top advisor to Donald Trump Jr., the president’s eldest son and a top figure in the MAGA movement, will steer an outside political group allied with Ramaswamy.
Tony Fabrizio, the veteran Republican pollster who worked on Trump’s 2016 and 2024 campaigns, as well as Vance’s 2022 Senate campaign, is also on board, according to the source, as is Arthur Schwartz, another close ally to Vance and Donald Trump Jr.
Vice President JD Vance speaks prior to swearing in Pete Hegseth as Defense secretary of Defense in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House campus, Saturday, Jan. 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Rod Lamkey, Jr.)
Vance, who has known Ramaswamy since they both studied at Yale Law School, has put his imprint on Ohio politics since winning his 2022 Senate election in the one-time key battleground state that has shifted to the right over the past decade.
Vance endorsed now-Sen. Bernie Moreno ahead of his 2024 GOP Senate primary victory, and key members of Vance’s political team steered Moreno’s campaign.
“It should not come as a surprise that JD’s top operatives are working with Vivek, given that JD and Vivek have had a longtime friendship,” a source in Vance’s political orbit told Fox News.
A longtime Ohio-based Republican operative, who asked for anonymity to speak more freely, said Vance is “sending a message” with this move.
He added that the advisors joining the Ramaswamy effort are “an all-star caliber campaign team.”
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Also part of that team, according to the source, are three veterans from Ramaswamy’s White House campaign – Ben Yoho, Mike Biundo and Chris Grant.
Ramaswamy, who’s now 39 years old, launched his presidential campaign in February 2023 and quickly saw his stock rise as he went from a long shot to a contender for the Republican nomination.
He campaigned on what he called an “America First 2.0” agenda and was one of Trump’s biggest supporters in the field of rivals, calling Trump the “most successful president in our century.”
Ramaswamy dropped his White House bid a year ago after a distant fourth-place finish in the Iowa caucuses and quickly endorsed Trump, becoming a top surrogate on the campaign trail.
Trump, in the days after his November presidential election victory, named Elon Musk, the world’s richest person, along with Ramaswamy, to steer the Department of Government Efficiency initiative, which is better known by its acronym DOGE.
Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy arrive at the U.S. Capitol to discuss their efforts leading DOGE, in December. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
But last Monday, as Trump was inaugurated, the new administration announced that Ramaswamy was no longer serving at DOGE. Ramaswamy’s exit appears to clear the way for Musk, Trump’s top donor and key ally, to steer DOGE without having to share the limelight.
“It was my honor to help support the creation of DOGE. I’m confident that Elon & team will succeed in streamlining government. I’ll have more to say very soon about my future plans in Ohio. Most importantly, we’re all-in to help President Trump make America great again!,” Ramaswamy wrote.
DeWine announced a week and a half ago that Lt. Gov. Jon Husted would fill the U.S. Senate seat that was held by Vance until he stepped down ahead of the Trump/Vance inauguration.
Before the Senate announcement, Husted had planned to run for governor in 2026 to succeed DeWine. Ramaswamy, for his part, had expressed interest in serving in the Senate.
Gov. Mike DeWine announces his appointment of Lt. Gov. Jon Husted, right, to fill the U.S. Senate seat formerly held by Vice President-elect JD Vance, on Jan. 17, 2025, in Columbus, Ohio. (AP Photo/Julie Carr Smyth)
DeWine’s decision to choose Husted to fill the vacant Senate seat appeared to accelerate Ramaswamy’s move toward launching a run for governor.
Sen. Rick Scott of Florida, a major Trump ally in the Senate, on Monday endorsed Ramswamy’s all-but-certain gubernatorial bid.
“I’ve had the privilege of working closely with Vivek G. Ramaswamy, and he is totally focused on trying to save our country,” Scott said in a social media post.
The race for the GOP gubernatorial nomination could be competitive. Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost, 68, announced late last week his candidacy for governor.
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Ramaswamy’s move to run for governor also comes a couple of weeks after he and Musk sparked a firestorm among Trump’s hard core MAGA supporters over their support for H-1B temporary worker visas for highly skilled workers from foreign countries.
Ramaswamy’s comments criticizing an American culture that he said “venerated mediocrity over excellence” received plenty of pushback from some leading voices on the right as well as some in Trump’s political circle.
Ohio, which was once a top general election battleground, has shifted red over the past decade as Republicans have dominated statewide elections.
