Ohio congressman vying to replace JD Vance in the Senate says Trump's agenda must be priority on 'Day One'

Rep. Mike Carey, R-Ohio, is among a crowded list of contenders vying to replace Vice President-elect JD Vance when he formally resigns from the U.S. Senate. 

In an interview with Fox News Digital, Carey, a former coal lobbyist and a veteran who won Ohio’s 15th congressional district for the third time since 2021, touted his experience working with President-elect Trump in the private sector. Carey argued that whomever Republican Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine chooses to replace Vance will need to be ready on “day one” to help implement the new administration’s agenda. Vance has yet to formally resign.

With three endorsements from Trump under his belt, Carey said 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 told Fox News 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 House Ways and Means Committee and Committee on House Administration, said. “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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Through his work on the House Committee on Administration, Carey said he helped secure bipartisan support for and ultimately President Biden’s signature on the bill that launched the Congressional Election Observer program. That program deploys congressional poll watchers to hotly contested House races. 

Carey also said the next senator has to be cognizant of the diverse 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 said. “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.”

Similarly, Carey said that his district, which has an approximately 22% minority population and stretches from urban Columbus west across suburban areas and smaller towns and rural farmland, “is really a microcosm of the state of Ohio.” Carey said 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 significant flip earlier this month. Carey, meanwhile, secured re-election in the House, 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 said. “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, walk together on Capitol Hill, Thursday, Nov. 21, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

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On the campaign trail, Trump highlighted two issues Carey said he worked on personally: tax credits for caregivers and in-vitro fertilization (IVF). Most of the 27 bills Carey introduced in the House have had at least one Democratic co-sponsor, the congressman said, including the Credit for Caring Act, which provides aa $3,000 tax credit for home health care providers who want to stay at home to take care of their loved ones. 

Over the past several months, Carey said he has also been working on a tax credit for Americans “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 told Fox News 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 during the House Ways and Means markup hearing of  the Default Prevention Act on Thursday, March 9, 2023. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

DeWine indicated that his selection must be well positioned to stave off Democrats’ chances of reclaiming a spot in the Ohio Senate delegation in November 2026, when a special election will be held for the remaining two years of the six-year term. 

Besides Carey, other members in Ohio’s congressional delegation vying to replace Vance include Reps. Jim Jordan, David Joyce and Warren Davidson. But choosing a member of the House would temper the GOP’s already slim majority in the lower chamber, and DeWine could weigh how House vacancies take months to fill under Ohio’s election protocols.  

The vast number of GOP candidates who competed in Ohio primaries in 2022 and 2024 makes for an even wider field of potential replacements for Vance. 

Contenders include former Ohio Republican Chair Jane Timken; two-term Secretary of State Frank LaRose; and state Sen. Matt Dolan, whose family owns baseball’s Cleveland Guardians. Two-term Ohio Treasurer Robert Sprague and Republican attorney and strategist Mehek Cooke, a frequent guest on Fox News, are also reported to be under consideration.

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“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 said. “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.”