When Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost’s poll numbers started plummeting in the Ohio governor’s race earlier this year, he started looking for an offramp.
President Donald Trump had endorsed Yost’s main primary opponent, Vivek Ramaswamy, and according to internal polling from the Ramaswamy campaign, the former presidential candidate held a commanding 60-point lead in the governor’s race. Yost began telling people he was considering dropping out, according to four sources familiar with the matter.
However, these sources said Yost didn’t just want to drop out; he wanted an appointment in the Trump administration that would allow him to save face as he ended his gubernatorial bid.
Yost, a onetime Trump skeptic who refused to endorse the president in 2016, began inquiring about an appointment, the four sources told NOTUS, adding that the attorney general wanted a job before the Ohio Republican Party’s State Central Committee meeting on Friday, when the party is slated to endorse its preferred candidate for governor.
After months of angling for an appointment, he got one.
In April, the Trump administration offered Yost the position of ambassador to Cyprus, according to three of the sources familiar with the matter.
But Yost didn’t want it, the sources said. He rejected the appointment, apparently seeking a more prominent position than an ambassadorship to a small island nation in the Mediterranean.
The sources added that Yost’s refusal frustrated and annoyed many in the White House, who felt Yost was looking a gift horse in the mouth.
“For the White House to come through with an offer like this both shows their respect for him, and how much they value him, and then to turn that down is unbelievable,” one of the sources said.
The administration didn’t offer him another position, and it is unclear if Yost plans to stay in the race ahead of Friday’s endorsement. Asked for comment about the refusal, a spokesperson for Yost didn’t address those questions and instead told NOTUS in a statement that Yost was continuing his bid for governor.
“Dave Yost is running to become the next governor of Ohio. He looks forward to serving Ohioans — just as he has done his entire career — for the next eight years,” Amy Natoce, a spokesperson for Yost, told NOTUS in a statement.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Yost has served as attorney general of Ohio since 2019 and, before that, he was state auditor from 2011 to 2019.
In polling, Yost continues to trail Ramaswamy, as well as the state’s lieutenant governor, Jim Tressel, who hasn’t announced a bid for governor yet but is rumored to get in the race.
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Reese Gorman is a reporter at NOTUS.