Ryan was born in Niles, Ohio, north of Youngstown, a region full of voters who are effectively Trump Democrats, many of whom are union members or retirees. He overcame Biden in his district, but Democrats suffered a series of defeats in other electoral contests.
The question, if Ryan becomes his party’s candidate, is whether he can win back those voters, mostly white.
Ryan has long considered running across the state, but in the past he decided to seek re-election to the House seat he won for the first time in 2002, when he succeeded the famous and corrupt James Traficant.
Ryan prepared a remote candidacy for the presidency in 2019 with the same message he hopes to bring to the Senate race – that Democrats will build lasting majorities only if they regain support from a multiracial coalition of working-class voters.
In addition to raising that argument, Ryan, 47, has another compelling reason to run for the Senate: as Republicans get stronger in eastern Ohio, their district becomes increasingly competitive, and the Republican Party can redesign the state’s districts to make them even more prohibitive for him in 2022.
Although he rose on the Appropriations Committee, Ryan almost gave up his hopes of joining the House leadership, having been rejected in his 2016 challenge against Nancy Pelosi, then leader of the minority.
In Congress, Ryan has been a close ally of the unions and has generally followed the Democratic line, shifting to a position in support of the right to abortion in recent years. Even before he formally announced his candidacy, Ryan obtained support from the state section of the International Brotherhood of Electric Workers, which released a letter on Monday endorsing his undeclared candidacy.