CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley, viewed as a young rising political star by state Democrats, announced on Monday she is running for governor.

Whaley, 41, told cleveland.com her position as a mayor gives her a front-row seat to the problems the Ohio has faced under Gov. John Kasich and other Republicans who have generally run the state for the past 25 years.

"As a mayor, I just understand what's going on on the ground in Ohio, when you look at how Ohio has been trailing the nation in job growth in the past 50 months," Whaley. "I also understand the frustration that Ohioans have over not having their lives be better off than before when Republicans took control. I think we should have better days ahead in Ohio, and we need new leadership for that to happen."

Whaley joins a crowded Democratic field that also includes former U.S. Rep. Betty Sutton of Copley Township, former Southwest Ohio State Rep. Connie Pillich and Youngstown-area State Sen. Joe Schiavoni. Many Democratic activists have hoped U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau head Richard Cordray, the former state attorney general, will enter the race. But with his future with the agency tied up in court indefinitely, and the position's ban on engaging in politics, that leaves the remaining lesser-known Democrats to duke it out in what early polls have suggested is a wide-open primary race.

The Republican gubernatorial field is similarly crowded, but the GOP's candidates are more well-established -- three of the four major candidates who are likely to appear on the ballot have won multiple statewide races. Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted, who previously represented the Dayton area as a state legislator, announced his own bid on Sunday. He joined Wadsworth U.S. Rep. Jim Renacci in the race, while Lt. Gov. Mary Taylor and state Attorney General Mike DeWine also have said they will run.

Current Republican Gov. John Kasich is barred by term-limits from running for re-election next year.

History suggests that Democrats, as the opposition party to a Republican-controlled presidency and Congress, may benefit nationwide from the wider political climate in an off-year election. But any Ohio Democrat could face an uphill battle in a state that seems to be trending rightward -- current Gov. John Kasich, who is term-limited, was re-elected in 2014 by 30 points, while President Donald Trump won the state last year by a sizable 8-point margin.

Whaley said Democrats need to engage with voters in all 88 counties. She said she lives in the most conservative area of the state, which gives her a "great understanding" of what she thinks is happening here politically.

"I think a key message about what Democrats can do is making sure people can get paid decently and have a dignity of work," Whaley said. "That's a really key message, and that's an Ohio message. So I don't view Ohio as a Democratic state or a Republican state. Ohioans are going to vote on what's best for Ohioans."

More about Whaley

Whaley is an Indiana native who moved to Ohio to attend the University of Dayton, from which she graduated in 1998 with a chemistry degree. While she was in school, she was involved in local and state politics, becoming the executive director of the Montgomery County Democratic Party in 1997. From 2001 to 2005, she held as a job as an aide with the Montgomery County Auditor's Office, where her husband, Sam Braun, still works.

She was elected to the Dayton City Commission in 2005, and was elected mayor in November 2013. She was unopposed for re-election this year. In 2009, she received a master's in public administration degree from Wright State University, where she works as an adjunct professor.

In contrast to Cleveland and other large Ohio cities where the mayor is a full-time executive who oversees the city administration, Dayton has what's considered a "weak mayor" position. That means while Whaley has extensive ceremonial duties, her only official power is to chair meetings by the city's commission, which appoints a powerful city manager.

But Whaley has made herself an active mayor, advocating for Dayton to become more bike-friendly and founding a regional task force of local manufacturers. Since Whaley was elected mayor, downtown Dayton has been the setting of some of the same increase in residential and commercial development seen by other urban areas, including Cleveland. In 2015, Site Selection magazine named Dayton, which has strong economic ties to the nearby Wright Patterson Air Force Base, the second-best mid-sized city for business expansion projects. But the city remains troubled by issues experienced by other Rust Belt cities, including housing blight and long-term population loss, violent crime and poverty.

Whaley said after she took office, Dayton was one of the first cities to declare a state of emergency in response to the ongoing opiate addiction crisis.

In February, Whaley got some minor national exposure when she was chosen to nominate another young Midwestern mayor, South Bend, Indiana's Pete Buttigieg for chair of the Democratic National Committee at a DNC meeting in Atlanta. (Buttigieg then immediately withdrew.)

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