Former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy announced Monday that he is running for Ohio governor, a move that comes just over month after he stepped down as co-leader of a government efficiency effort in the Trump White House. 

“President Trump is reviving our conviction in America,’’ Ramaswamy told a crowd at his campaign launch rally at a Cincinnati aerospace company. “We require a leader here at home who will revive our conviction in Ohio.”

Ramaswamy, who is hoping to replicate Trump’s jump from the business world to elective office, stuck to familiar themes. 

“We will lead Ohio to be the top state in the country, where we embrace capitalism and meritocracy instead of apologizing for it,’’ he said. “We will lead Ohio to be the top state in the country that takes a hatchet to red tape, over-regulation and bureaucracy.”

Later Monday, Trump wrote in all-caps on his Truth Social platform that Ramaswamy had his “complete and total endorsement.”

“I know him well, competed against him, and he is something SPECIAL,” Trump said of his onetime rival for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.

Ramaswamy is not the first high-profile Republican to enter the race to succeed term-limited GOP Gov. Mike DeWine. State Attorney General Dave Yost launched his bid for the party nod last month. On the Democratic side, Amy Acton, who led the state department of health under DeWine during the COVID-19 pandemic, is also in the race.

Even before his campaign kickoff, Ramaswamy had picked up support from prominent Ohio Republicans, including Secretary of State Frank LaRose and state Treasurer Robert Sprague, both once seen as potential gubernatorial candidates. Sprague even filed paperwork indicating interest in the office, but after Ramaswamy signaled he would run for governor, the treasurer switched to the open secretary of state race. LaRose, who is term-limited, is running for state auditor. 

Republicans have dominated gubernatorial elections in the Buckeye State in recent decades, winning eight of the past nine races going back to 1990. Once among the premier swing states in the country, Ohio has swung decidedly right over the past decade, with Republicans holding every nonjudicial statewide elected office. DeWine won a second term in 2022 by 25 points while Donald Trump carried the state by 11 points last fall.

A Cincinnati native and a graduate of Harvard and Yale Law School, Ramaswamy made his fortune in finance and biotechnology. He was a political newcomer when he launched his largely self-funded campaign for president in 2024, but he dropped out after the Iowa caucus and endorsed Trump. 

After Trump won in November, he appointed Ramaswamy and Elon Musk as co-leaders of the newly created Department of Government Efficiency. But Ramaswamy left that post hours after Trump’s inauguration reportedly over clashes with Musk. 

Ramaswamy had been mentioned as a potential appointee for Ohio’s open Senate seat, which was vacated last month by Vice President JD Vance. But DeWine instead appointed his lieutenant governor, Jon Husted, to the post. 

A pro-Ramaswamy outside group conducted a poll in January that found him with more than 50 percent support among Republican primary voters. NBC News reported last month that Ramaswamy has hired several top advisers to Vance.

Ramaswamy told NBC News in a recent interview that if elected governor, he was “fully committed to serving a full term.”