Tressel for governor?
Heading into this week, conventional wisdom around Capitol Square was that Gov. Mike DeWine would pick a caretaker as Ohio’s next lieutenant governor.
So did he?
That’s the new conversation topic surrounding DeWine’s selection of Jim Tressel, the legendary former Ohio State football coach. The answer will weigh heavily on the 2026 election and the future of Ohio’s state government after that. Regardless, Tressel is taking over for Jon Husted, whom DeWine appointed to the U.S. Senate last month to replace Vice President JD Vance.
In a news conference in Columbus on Monday, Tressel, 72, described being surprised when the governor visited him on Feb. 1 to convince him to give up retirement and take the job.
The sales pitch apparently didn’t involve convincing Tressel to run for office when DeWine leaves office due to term limits at the end of 2026.
“We’ve had no discussion about that,” DeWine cut in and said when Tressel was asked if he would rule out doing something like that. “I asked Jim to sign up for less than two years. That’s been our focus.”
The word “focus” carries weight. It’s a term politicians commonly employ when refusing to directly answer a question about their future plans. Tressel also used the term in response to a similar question.
Candidate vs. caretaker arguments
The argument for DeWine subtly trying to engineer a Republican primary opponent against Upper Arlington billionaire Vivek Ramaswamy, the race’s presumed frontrunner, as well as state Attorney General Dave Yost, goes something like this.
Had DeWine truly been thinking about picking a caretaker and not a future political candidate, he could have looked within his administration. He described passing over multiple cabinet members, including development Director Lydia Mihalik and public safety Director Andy Wilson.
By picking Tressel, DeWine chose someone with a campaign-ready biography, including a potential base of political support in Columbus. Sen. Tommy Tuberville in Alabama, another former football coach elected in another football-crazy state, offers a playbook for Tressel to follow. Tuberville won with President Trump’s endorsement. He also campaigned in Ohio last year with Tressel for Sen. Bernie Moreno, showing how Tressel has been involved on the periphery of Ohio Republican politics despite never having run for office.
On the other hand, Tressel has qualities that would explain why DeWine would pick him to simply do the job in front of him. Tressel brings instant credibility with key Republican stakeholders – as well as a unique ability to draw public attention to DeWine’s agenda – that another candidate wouldn’t have brought. Thanks to his experience with a lobbying group for public universities during his tenure as president of Youngstown State University, Tressel has longstanding relationships with the legislature, including Senate President Rob McColley, who was an OSU student when Tressel was the football coach there. He also has ties to the Christian right, via his connections with LifeWise, an evangelical organization in the Columbus area that runs off-site Bible-study classes for K-12 students during school hours.
As is often the case with politics, there doesn’t have to be a yes-or-no answer. Both can be true. Tressel is a credible caretaker lieutenant governor who could simply be postponing his retirement, although he might also turn out to be a credible candidate for governor if the inspiration strikes him during the next year or so.
Moreno asks Trump administration to investigate drones in Ohio
Senator Moreno is looking for answers to some lofty questions hovering over Western Ohio.
In a Thursday letter to two top Trump administration officials – Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem – Moreno asked for help investigating a spate of drone sightings in Ohio. He’s specifically referring to sightings reported by citizens and law enforcement last month in Darke, Mercer and Van Wert counties.
Moreno’s queries included asking Duffy and Noem whether their agencies are tracking the incidents and whether any legislative changes are necessary. The Trump White House said last month that similar drone sightings were a mix of flights authorized by the Federal Aviation Administration and unsanctioned activity by hobbyists.
“State and local law enforcement needs assistance from your agencies to help address these pervasive drones,” Moreno said in his letter. “Ohioans have a right to be concerned.”
In an interview with Signal, Darke County Sheriff Mark Whittaker said around the end of January, his office received 20 to 30 daily reports of drone sightings for two or three days. These briefly intensified after they got local media attention, prompted by a statement from the sheriff’s office, but have since leveled off.
“There were several occasions when the deputies would speak with the residents who made the report, and eventually through some conversation, it was pointed out what they were looking at were stars or aircrafts flying at higher altitudes, like commercial airlines,” Whittaker said.
Some of the drones were quite large, while others were operated in ways that clearly violated FAA rules. That includes flying a drone at such a distance that it could no longer be seen from the ground by the operator, Mercer County Sheriff Doug Timmerman said in a separate interview with Signal.
Deputies witnessed some of the flights but never figured out who was flying them. Checks with the FAA didn’t yield any useful information, he said.
But residents have privacy concerns, and Timmerman said there are also security concerns for local poultry farms, which have been decimated by the recent bird flu outbreak.
“I’m not convinced the rules in place are as strong as they could be,” Timmerman said.
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