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.”

WASHINGTON —  Near the cafeteria of the Rayburn House Office Building, right next to the trash bins, is a drab room with rows of cubicles wistfully called the “Departing Member Center.”

After every election, sitting members of the House who are retiring or lost their race are relegated to this sad wing for their final weeks in office. At the same time, incoming members show up for a freshman orientation that culminates in gleefully picking out paint colors, drapes and furniture for the offices they will occupy for at least the next two years.

The transition period is a thorny time on Capitol Hill, occupied simultaneously by anticipation and resignation. Attention is showered on wide-eyed new members flooding the halls while those departing are rather ungraciously shunted aside in their final days.

A staffer for one California House member called it “the Congress experience at its worst.”

Even outgoing Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Burbank) — elected Nov. 6 to serve as California’s next U.S. senator — was told he had until last Wednesday to vacate his House office.

“I walked back to do a staff photo in my House office, and my name had already been taken off the wall,” he said. “So there was this blank space on the wall. I’m like, oh my God, they’ve taken my name!”

Like most, he was wholly unimpressed by the temporary digs offered in the departing member center. He has a separate basement office that he described as “totally luxurious” by comparison.

Fortunately for Schiff, he will take over outgoing Sen. Laphonza Butler’s space when she and her team leave next month.

Incoming House members met early Thursday morning at the Capitol for the 119th congressional office lottery, a tradition that started with the 60th Congress in 1908.

Members were called at random to approach a polished wooden box holding numbered chips that determined the order in which they would get to choose an available office suite. Those with the lowest numbers would get first pick.

It was a moment of competitive levity at the end of their whirlwind two-week orientation — but also one of high stakes. It determined whether their staff would work in a spacious suite with window views of the National Mall and a short walk to the Capitol building, or be stuck with something far less impressive and convenient.

Rep.-elect Craig Goldman (R-Tex.) was up first. He got 48.

“Oh, that hurts!” Rep.-elect Sam Liccardo (D-San Jose) jokingly heckled from the sidelines. “Enjoy the basement!”

Rep.-elect Sam Liccardo (D-San Jose) speaks after a news conference to introduce newly elected members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus on Nov. 15 in Washington.

(Mariam Zuhaib / Associated Press)

Members cheered in unison when one of their colleagues pulled a low number, and groaned when they pulled a high number.

Rep.-elect Luz Rivas (D-North Hollywood) pumped her fists and did a sign of the cross as she walked up to the lottery box. She got 43.

Rep.-elect Laura Friedman, (D-Glendale) posted a selfie with Rivas on X as the process got underway, calling it “the Capitol’s equivalent of a sporting event.”

When it was Liccardo’s turn, he did an arm wave — he later said veteran members of Congress had told him there was a tradition of dancing for good luck. But he winced as he looked down at his chip: 47.

“I finished better in the election,” he said.

Rep.-elect Lateefah Simon (D-Richmond) attended but didn’t participate in the lottery. She said she had submitted a request to House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) for an accessible office that could meet the needs of people with disabilities. On Wednesday, Johnson approved her request, giving her an office on the first floor of the Longworth House Office Building.

“I’m a disability advocate, the only disabled person in this class, and I ran on that,” said Simon, who was born legally blind. “What a wonderful way to start my process here at the Capitol, being able to say to the disability community … your needs will be accommodated.”

Candidates in races that haven’t been called yet could not participate in the lottery. In California, two races remain too close to call. Rep. John Duarte (R-Modesto), who is up against Democrat Adam Gray, had a lead of just 210 votes Friday afternoon. Democrat Derek Tran was beating incumbent Rep. Michelle Steel (R-Seal Beach) by 480 votes.

Duarte’s spokesman Duane Dichiara said it’s strange that the timing of California races being called and the regular churn of Congress don’t sync.

Rep. Nanette Diaz Barragán (D-San Pedro), chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, introduces newly elected members of the caucus.

(Mark Schiefelbein / Associated Press)

“The way to deal with it would be to make California count their ballots in a reasonable time period,” he said. “It should integrate with how Congress actually works and not just be at the whims of the county registrar.”

Tran attended the new member orientation, but Gray did not. In 2022, when Duarte and Gray were separated by 564 votes, both attended the orientation.

When it comes to choosing an office, Liccardo said that if Gray and Tran beat the incumbents, they would take over their offices.

“It’s actually a blessing in disguise,” he said. “We’re all very jealous of Derek Tran because he’s probably got it in the bag — and he’s got a nice suite, too.”

Simon will represent the district currently represented by Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Oakland), who is retiring. Lee’s staffers have moved out of her coveted office with a view of the Capitol and are now working out of cafes, Simon said.

“It’s crazy, right?” she said. “There’s really no place for them. They have a lot of ingenuity in trying to figure out how to finish the work.”

Vice President Kamala Harris has kept a low profile since losing the election to President-elect Trump, vacationing in Hawaii with second gentleman Doug Emhoff since last week.

Harris arrived in Kalaoa, Hawaii, on Tuesday for what is expected to be a weeklong trip, a break from the rigorous campaign schedule she kept over the last couple of months but also from her duties as vice president, where she retains her tie-breaking vote as president of the Senate during the last few months of President Biden’s administration.

The timing of the vice president’s trip has generated questions, with some noting that many DNC staffers are uncertain about their futures while others had been surprised by sudden layoffs.

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White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre defended the Harris vacation during a Thursday briefing, arguing there was nothing “wrong” with the vice president taking a vacation.

“The vice president has taken time off to go spend time with her family. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. I think she deserves some time to be with her family and to have some downtime. She has worked very hard over – for the last four years, and her taking a couple of days to be with her family, good for her. Good for her,” Jean-Pierre said.

Harris is still expected to play a critical role in helping Biden push through several judges as Democrats race against the clock to top the 234 that were confirmed during Trump’s first term, according to an NBC News report last week.

With the Democrats holding such a slim majority in the upper chamber, Harris broke the record last year for casting the most decisive votes of any vice president in history, the report notes, with Democrats expected to lean on the vice president once again in the coming weeks.

Vice President Kamala Harris delivers a concession speech on Nov. 6, on the campus of Howard University in Washington, D.C. (AP/Jacquelyn Martin)

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“This is something they want to clear the decks on,” a senior Harris aide told NBC News.

“She will definitely be available for any tie votes,” a second senior aide said.

“It is a big focus,” a third source told the outlet.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., also said Tuesday that she was given notice that Harris would be available, though the senator had not personally talked to Harris, according to the report.

“The goal is to fill every judicial nomination that we can,” Warren said.

Vice President Kamala Harris listens as President Biden speaks about border security at the White House, Jan. 5, 2023. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

Meanwhile, a senior Harris aide told NBC News that the vice president had already delayed her trip in case she was needed in the Senate, though now many of those votes are expected to take place in December when Harris is back in Washington.

The Harris campaign and White House did not immediately respond to a Fox News Digital request for comment.