Josh Mandel Announces Bid for US Senate

COLUMBUS, OH — Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel has officially launched his bid for the U.S. Senate. The 39-year-old Republican previously ran in 2012 and was defeated by incumbent Democrat Sherrod Brown. Now, Mandel will look to make up for his loss and oust Brown.

In a video posted on Twitter today, Mandel announced his candidacy. He positioned himself as a fighter and proponent of transparency. You can watch the full video at the bottom of this article.

"I've been fighting to make Ohio's government more transparent and more accountable to the people," he said. "Now, it's time to take the fight to Washington. That's why I'm running for U.S. Senate."

Adopting some of the rhetoric that propelled President-elect Donald Trump to a surprise victory and made Sen. Bernie Sanders a significant challenger to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's presidential bid, Mandel described Washington as a "rigged system" and said it no longer worked for the people. He said he wants to transfer power away from politicians and back to the public.

It's an interesting platform leading into the 2018 Senate race. Mandel has also adopted a brazen Twitter strategy that saw him describe the Ohio State University attack as being executed by "Radical Islam" before police had revealed many details.

Brown trounced Mandel in 2012 by 6 percentage points. In that election, Brown received 2,762,757 votes and Mandel got 2,435,740 votes.

However, Brown may not be Mandel's only opponent. With his time as governor limited, John Kasich has reportedly been eyeing a run at Brown's senate position as well, cleveland.com reports. Thought it's unclear if he'll pull the trigger on a run, his entry would certainly make the primary much more heated for Mandel.

Watch Mandel's announcement below:

Photo from City of Lakewood