Former Secretary of State Ken Blackwell is reportedly thinking about challenging Sen. Sherrod Brown in next year’s U.S. Senate race in Ohio.
“The reality is that Sherrod Brown needs to be defeated,” Blackwell told a reporter shortly after addressing the Faith & Freedom Conference in Washington, D.C., this past weekend. Blackwell, a board member of the corporate-funded Club for Growth, said that he was seriously considering entering the race.
Brown, who was swept into office in 2006 when he trounced two-term Republican Sen. Mike DeWine by nearly a half-million votes, leads all of his potential GOP rivals by 17 to 21 points, according to the most recent Public Policy Polling survey. The immensely popular Brown is considered one of the U.S. Senate’s most progressive members.
Blackwell is one of three Ohio Republicans currently taking a serious look at Brown’s seat. State Treasurer Josh Mandel, who’s already been shaking his party’s money tree, and former state Sen. Kevin Coughlin, a fourteen-year veteran of the Ohio legislature, are also reportedly testing the waters.
Blackwell, a former mayor of Cincinnati, became the center of national attention during the hotly-contested 2004 presidential election between President George W. Bush and Democrat John Kerry — a race which ultimately hinged on the outcome in Ohio, a state Bush eventually carried by 118,000 votes.
As an honorary co-chair of the president’s reelection campaign while also serving as Ohio’s chief elections officer, Blackwell was the subject of intense controversy during that campaign and was later named in multiple lawsuits alleging conflict of interest and voter disenfranchisement.
Blackwell, who has been busy in recent weeks promoting his book, “Resurgent: How Constitutional Conservatism Can Save America,” said that he’ll make a decision regarding the Senate race when his book tour ends later this month.
The 63-year-old politician-turned-columnist was drubbed in a 2006 bid for governor, losing to Democrat Ted Strickland by more than 900,000 votes. He later ran unsuccessfully for chair of the Republican National Committee.
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