Josh Mandel

Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel, seen here in a 2014 file photo, continues to gear up his campaign to attempt to unseat Sen. Sherrod Brown in 2018.

(Gus Chan, The Plain Dealer)

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- State Treasurer Josh Mandel, who continues to assemble an early-developing campaign operation for U.S. Senate in 2018, on Monday announced the names of campaign leaders in all 88 Ohio counties.

The names are a mix of business figures, conservative political activists, elected officials and Republican Party functionaries. Many were actively involved with the wildly successful effort to help Donald Trump win Ohio in the November election. They now will help Mandel recruit volunteers and coordinate get-out-the-vote efforts, and will represent him at events in the coming months.

Mandel said in an interview Monday that his list of campaign chairs is an illustration of the "grassroots army" his campaign is assembling for 2018, when Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown, of Cleveland, will be up for re-election.

"Beating Sherrod Brown is a top priority for conservatives around Ohio and around the country. And so as we recruited our county chairs, we looked for leaders who are conservatives, and who are doers," he said.

Why it matters

The list is a demonstration of Mandel's campaign organization, which is coming together unusually early for a senate candidate. For comparison, Mandel, who unsuccessfully challenged Brown in 2012, did not even file paperwork to run that election cycle until April 2011.

It also shows Mandel's success in locking down some key Ohio supporters who could conceivably work for another Republican senate candidate. Columbus-area U.S. Rep. Pat Tiberi, a close ally of Ohio Gov. John Kasich, also has been testing the waters to run for senate and has plenty of money to do it, but hasn't yet officially declared.

What Democrats have to say

In an email, Jake Strassberger, a spokesman for the Ohio Democratic Party, said Mandel is neglecting his elected job to run for a higher office.

"Josh Mandel has always been more focused on campaigning for a new office than doing the job taxpayers pay him to do -- that's why he launched his first Senate bid just days after becoming treasurer six years ago and why he spent all of last year raising money for his second Senate bid," he said. "It's no surprise that he plans to spend all of 2017 campaigning -- and it's why Ohioans will always see Josh as a politician we just can't trust."

Who's on the list

Some of the list's highlights include Butler County Sheriff Richard Jones, an illegal-immigration hardliner in Southwest Ohio who enthusiastically campaigned for Trump, Lori Viars, a Warren County resident who is a top anti-abortion activist, Dave Johnson, the chairman of the Columbiana County Republican Party who helped Trump engineer the surprise ouster of former Ohio Republican Party Chair Matt Borges earlier this year, and Thea Shoemake and Heidi Huber, a pair of Clermont County activists who helped spearhead opposition to the federal Common Core standards in Ohio.

Mandel's campaign co-chairs in Cuyahoga County are GOP activist Lisa Stickan, her mother Lucy Stickan, a longtime aide to Sen. Rob Portman and Diane Stover, an activist for socially conservative causes. Mandel also has a group of key backers from Ashtabula County, where Republicans, riding a wave of blue-collar Trump support, in November seized unanimous country of the county commission for the first time in recent memory. County GOP Chair Charlie Frye, County Commissioner Casey Kozlowski, a former state representative, GOP donor and businessman Tom Pope and his wife, Melissa Pope, a state GOP committeewoman, will lead Mandel's campaign there.

To view the list, scroll down or click here for a PDF.