CLEVELAND — Vivek Ramaswamy has landed Vice President JD Vance’s top political advisers to guide his soon-to-launch bid for governor in Ohio, a source involved in the planning told NBC News.
The hirings followed conversations between Vance and Ramaswamy over the last two weeks, said this person, who was granted anonymity to share details of private discussions.
The hirings also signal that Vance’s team, which overlaps in places with President Donald Trump’s, is fully behind Ramaswamy and that Vance himself is comfortable loaning out his advisers’ talents to him. Ramaswamy, a biotech entrepreneur who has known Vance since their studies at Yale Law School, last week parted ways with the new Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, just as the federal spending watchdog project was getting off the ground.
“Expect Vivek to announce his candidacy in mid-February,” the source said.
For Vance, it’s an early flex of the political muscle that helped elevate him first to the Senate in his and Ramaswamy’s native Ohio and, most recently, to the vice presidency.
Andy Surabian and Jai Chabria, both of whom played lead roles in the strategies of those two campaigns, will join Ramaswamy’s effort.
Chabria, a longtime Republican operative in Ohio, will be the campaign’s general consultant. Surabian, a veteran of Trump’s earlier races who consulted on Sen. Bernie Moreno’s successful campaign last year in Ohio and is the top political adviser to Donald Trump Jr., will oversee an outside political organization aligned with Ramaswamy.
Tony Fabrizio, the pollster from Vance’s 2022 Senate bid who has worked on Trump’s campaigns, is also on board, as is Arthur Schwartz, a close ally to Vance and Trump Jr. Ramaswamy’s team also will include veterans from the high command of his 2024 presidential run: Ben Yoho, Michael Biundo and Chris Grant.
Some of those advisers will staff the campaign, while others are expected to work with Surabian at the aligned outside organization, the source involved in the planning said.
Ramaswamy is preparing for what could be a crowded and competitive primary in 2026 to replace the term-limited Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican.
Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost last week declared his candidacy for the GOP nomination and has tapped Justin Clark, a veteran of Trump’s campaigns, as a general consultant. Another Republican, state Treasurer Robert Sprague, has said he plans to enter the race soon.
Although Ramaswamy has cultivated a national profile and ties to Trump, the only time his name appeared on an Ohio ballot was in last year’s March primary, by which time he was no longer a candidate for president. His brief work on the DOGE project placed him alongside Elon Musk, the billionaire Tesla CEO and owner of X who has become a close Trump adviser.
“He’s leaving on good terms with Trump, Elon and the team,” a source familiar with Ramaswamy’s thinking told NBC News on Inauguration Day, the day Ramaswamy’s departure became public.
