In Ohio, the lieutenant governor doesn’t have many responsibilities.

The lieutenant governor becomes governor if the latter leaves office.

Also, the second-in-charge is usually a sounding board for the governor and if the governor chooses to, that person can be appointed as an administrative department head. If the governor doesn’t want anything to do with the lieutenant governor, the latter can spend most of his or her time collecting a paycheck and nothing more.

But selecting a lieutenant governor running mate is always a big deal even though the most important quality that person brings is to not harm the gubernatorial candidate.

Other benefits are if that person has legitimate political credentials, they can help raise money and / or score points by criticizing the opponents.

Vivek Ramaswamy, the presumptive Republican governor nominee, chose Senate President Rob McColley as his running mate while Amy Acton, the presumptive Democratic nominee, selected David Pepper, a former Ohio Democratic Party chairman.

It looked like McColley was going to run this year for Congress against Democrat Marcy Kaptur. As a member of the Ohio Redistricting Commission, McColley helped manipulate the congressional map to put his hometown of Napoleon in Kaptur’s Toledo-based district and draw it to favor a Republican.

But word is McColley grew less enthusiastic about Congress and with Ramaswamy looking for a conservative who knew the Statehouse, the Senate president became a logical choice.

In statewide executive branch elections, Ohioans have backed Republicans for years. Democrats haven’t won an executive branch seat in the state since 2008.

That means clean sweeps by Republicans of those seats in the 2010, 2014, 2018 and 2022 elections. Also, Republican Donald Trump has won the 2016, 2020 and 2024 presidential elections in the state and Sherrod Brown, a former U.S. senator, was the last Democrat with his party affiliation on the ballot to win statewide in Ohio, back in 2018. Brown went on to lose reelection in 2024 to Republican Bernie Moreno.

Since party affiliation was put on the ballot for Ohio Supreme Court justices with the 2022 election, Republicans have won every race for those positions as well.

Though McColley doesn’t have to do much as Ramaswamy’s running mate, he has extensive leadership experience in the General Assembly and is a staunch conservative.

Not that Ramaswamy was going to move more to the center of the political spectrum during the general election, but his decision to name McColley shows that is out of the question.

McColley was a vocal supporter of a failed August 2023 constitutional amendment to make it harder to pass future constitutional amendments as a way to stop a successful abortion-rights amendment from passing later that year. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he introduced a bill to immediately end all of the state’s orders to stay at home, and he co-sponsored the so-called “heartbeat bill” that would have made it nearly impossible to get an abortion before the passage of the constitutional amendment.

Ramaswamy doesn’t need anyone to raise money for his campaign as he is already setting fundraising records and is a wealthy biotech entrepreneur. But in addition to McColley’s legislative experience — Ramaswamy has never held political office — the Senate president can be an attack dog despite his reputation as a low-key speaker.

In the announcement regarding McColley as the lieutenant governor running mate, he took aim at Acton, who served as the state’s health director during the early part of the pandemic before stepping down.

McColley said: “Ohio needs a businessman, not a bureaucrat; a creator, not a quitter; a visionary; not a victim. That leader is Vivek Ramaswamy. He will be one of the boldest leaders in the history of our state, and I’m honored to help execute his vision.”

As for Pepper, he checks the boxes of not causing harm to Acton, being able to help raise money and serving as an attack dog for Acton.

Pepper said of Ramaswamy: “While our opponent is flying around our state in his private jet and moving his business from Ohio to Texas, we’re working to tackle the affordability crisis and create an Ohio where we can all get ahead.”

Pepper served as Ohio Democratic Party chairman from 2015 to 2020. Before that, he twice lost statewide office — state auditor in 2010 and attorney general in 2014.

While the party’s statewide candidates were competitive in 2018, the fact is Democrats lost every single statewide executive branch seat that year.

While Pepper was chairman, three of the party’s Supreme Court candidates won, but they ran without party affiliation. While Pepper was chairman when Trump won Ohio in 2016 and 2020, there was little he could have done to stop that from happening.

After the lieutenant governor announcements, Jai Chabria, Ramaswamy’s chief strategist, called Pepper “a perennial political loser who has consistently done more to help Republicans than Democrats in Ohio, and it’s just the latest example of no Democrat with measurable political success wanting to run against Vivek.”

Chabria added: “We couldn’t be more thrilled to know Democrat ‘political mastermind’ David Pepper will be serving in a leadership role in Amy Acton’s campaign.”

David Skwolnick is a political writer for the Youngstown Vindicator and Warren Tribune-Chronicle, sister Ogden newspapwers with the Columbiana Country newspapers. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter, @dskolnick.Contact David Skolwnick by email at dskolnick@vindy.com. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter, @dskolnick.