Vice President JD Vance scored a significant home-state political win on Tuesday after his preferred candidate for a statewide office defeated a rival backed by GOP gubernatorial nominee Vivek Ramaswamy and much of Ohio’s Republican establishment.
Vance-backed Jay Edwards defeated Ramaswamy-endorsed Kristina Roegner in the Republican primary for Ohio state treasurer. Edwards won the race with 53% of the vote to Roegner’s 47%, with the Associated Press projecting his victory around 11 p.m.
Although the race drew little national attention, it evolved into an early proxy battle over influence inside the Ohio GOP. Vance and Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-OH) lined up behind Edwards early, casting the candidate as a Trump-aligned working-class conservative.
“Jay and I are both sons of Appalachia. We know what it’s like to come from places the elites ignore — and we know the strength, pride, and values that built Ohio,” Vance said when endorsing Edwards in February. “Jay has never forgotten where he came from, and he’s spent his career standing up for Southeast Ohio and putting hardworking people first.”
On his campaign website, Edwards said he was “inspired to run by President Trump” when he launched his first bid for the Ohio House in 2016. He served in the legislature from 2017 until 2025, when term limits forced him from office.
Roegner, meanwhile, entered the race with backing from much of Ohio’s Republican establishment. She was endorsed by state House Speaker Matt Huffman, state Senate President Rob McColley, and most Republican lawmakers in the state legislature.
A state senator who led Ohio’s “Heartbeat Bill” effort, Roegner also aligned herself early with Ramaswamy during both the latter’s 2024 presidential campaign and subsequent run for governor. She backed Ramaswamy while many longtime Ohio Republicans remained skeptical of the biotech entrepreneur-turned-politician, helping forge a close alliance between the two.
Ramaswamy later returned the favor by endorsing Roegner’s treasurer campaign in January and joining a letter urging the Ohio Republican Party to back her in the primary.
The competing camps collided publicly when the state party declined to endorse either candidate in the primary. Under party rules, leaders first needed a two-thirds vote to formally intervene in the contest before holding an endorsement vote, but they fell short of that threshold.
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Though Ohio’s treasurer position rarely draws national attention, it has historically given ambitious Republicans a launching pad for higher office. Former Treasurer Joe Deters later joined the Ohio Supreme Court, while Josh Mandel used the office as a platform for multiple U.S. Senate campaigns after serving from 2011 to 2019.
The treasurer’s race is open because incumbent Treasurer Robert Sprague is term-limited and instead running for secretary of state. Edwards will now face Cincinnati City Council member Seth Walsh in November after Walsh cleared the Democratic primary without opposition.