Rep. Mike Carey, R-Ohio, is amongst a crowded checklist of contenders vying to exchange Vice President-elect JD Vance when he formally resigns from the U.S. Senate.
In an interview with Fox Information Digital, Carey, a former coal lobbyist and fight veteran who gained Ohio’s fifteenth congressional district for the third time, touted his expertise working with President-elect Trump within the non-public sector. Carey argued that whomever Republican Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine chooses to exchange Vance will have to be prepared on “day one” to assist implement the brand new administration’s agenda. Vance has but to formally resign.
With three endorsements from Trump beneath his belt, Carey stated the president-elect “needs somebody in the Senate that will make sure that we get his agenda through.”
“I think that’s the most important thing, because I want the president to be successful. I think the American people want the president to be successful,” Carey instructed Fox Information Digital. “And I think that’s what we need from a senator from the state of Ohio. And so I’d be honored to help him move his agenda forward in the U.S. Senate.”
“I think you need to have somebody that’s able to start on Day One, hit the ground running as a U.S. senator,” Carey, who serves on the Home Methods and Means Committee and Committee on Home Administration, stated. “You don’t want to have somebody coming in from the great state of Ohio who has to be on the job training. And so we’ve had a track record of success here in the, you know, in the 15th Congressional District. I can easily parlay that into the Senate.”
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Mike Carey speaks at a rally hosted by former President Donald Trump after receiving his endorsement on June 26, 2021, in Wellington, Ohio. (Scott Olson/Getty Photographs)
By his work on the Home Committee on Administration, Carey stated he helped safe bipartisan help for and in the end President Biden’s signature on the invoice that launched the Congressional Election Observer program. That program deploys congressional ballot watchers to hotly contested Home races.
Carey additionally stated the following senator must be cognizant of the various nature of the state.
“I’ve spent a lifetime in Ohio. Born and raised in Ohio. But I think the senator has to understand we are a unique state,” Carey stated. “There is a reason why Columbus, Ohio, is the test market for any product as it relates to food services, because we are a microcosm of the United States, and that is really Ohio.”
Equally, Carey stated that his district, which has an roughly 22% minority inhabitants and stretches from city Columbus west throughout suburban areas and smaller cities and rural farmland, “is really a microcosm of the state of Ohio.” Carey stated he outperformed Republican Sen.-elect Bernie Moreno in his district by over 18,000 votes.
Moreno, a Trump-backed Cleveland businessman, garnered 50.18% of the vote, defeating incumbent Democrat Sen. Sherrod Brown in a major flip earlier this month. Carey, in the meantime, secured re-election within the Home, receiving 56.52% of the vote.
“In an R-5 district, we won by 13 points. So, you know, I think I have a track record. And I also think, you know, if people look at my voting record and the things that I have done, I brought back over $60 million in three years. I mean, I’ve only been in office for three years,” Carey stated. “I was in the private sector before that. So I’m not a career politician. But the opportunity to serve the state that I love, you know, I grew up in Cincinnati and Sabina and served in the military up at Camp Perry. My family’s from Cleveland and spent my career in Appalachia. So there’s nobody that knows the state any better than me. An opportunity to serve all the people of Ohio would be the honor of my life.”
Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., left, and Vice President-elect Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, stroll collectively on Capitol Hill, Thursday, Nov. 21, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photograph/Mark Schiefelbein)
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On the marketing campaign path, Trump highlighted two points Carey stated he labored on personally: tax credit for caregivers and in-vitro fertilization (IVF). A lot of the 27 payments Carey launched within the Home have had not less than one Democratic co-sponsor, the congressman stated, together with the Credit score for Caring Act, which gives aa $3,000 tax credit score for house well being care suppliers who need to keep at house to care for their family members.
Over the previous a number of months, Carey stated he has additionally been engaged on a tax credit score for Individuals “who simply just can’t afford IVF.”
“If somebody wants to have a child, we should do everything possible to give them the opportunity to have a child,” Carey instructed Fox Information Digital. “So, again, both very, I think, bipartisan ideas that the president has pushed forward. I’d be honored to work on those in the Senate and, you know, honored to work on them now in the House.”
Rep. Mike Carey, R-Ohio, listens in the course of the Home Methods and Means markup listening to of the Default Prevention Act on Thursday, March 9, 2023. (Invoice Clark/CQ-Roll Name, Inc by way of Getty Photographs)
DeWine indicated that his choice should be nicely positioned to stave off Democrats’ probabilities of reclaiming a spot within the Ohio Senate delegation in November 2026, when a particular election might be held for the remaining two years of the six-year time period.
In addition to Carey, different members in Ohio’s congressional delegation vying to exchange Vance embody Reps. Jim Jordan, David Joyce and Warren Davidson. However selecting a member of the Home would mood the GOP’s already slim majority within the decrease chamber, and DeWine may weigh how Home vacancies take months to fill beneath Ohio’s election protocols.
The huge variety of GOP candidates who competed in Ohio primaries in 2022 and 2024 makes for an excellent wider subject of potential replacements for Vance.
Contenders embody former Ohio Republican Chair Jane Timken; two-term Secretary of State Frank LaRose; and state Sen. Matt Dolan, whose household owns baseball’s Cleveland Guardians. Two-term Ohio Treasurer Robert Sprague and Republican legal professional and strategist Mehek Cooke, a frequent visitor on Fox Information, are additionally reported to be into account.
“The governor is somebody who I’ve admired since I was in grade school. He was a state senator. He was a congressman. He went to the Senate. He understands the nature of the body politic,” Carey stated. “But he also understands that we need to have somebody that understands Ohio. I mean, there’s nobody that loves Ohio more than, I’d say more than me, as would be Mike DeWine.… And I think he wants to get somebody in office that loves the state just as much as he does. And I think I meet that measure of the mark.”
