TOLEDO — After former Ohio U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown lost reelection to a fourth term back in November of 2024, it would be a few months before he re-entered the political scene. But in August of last year, the Democrat announced that he was going to give it another go.
His 2024 loss, by 3.6 points, was noteworthy in the context of President Donald Trump’s 11-point victory in the state. Brown’s margin of defeat, by Republican Bernie Moreno, is indicative of ticket-splitting, a phenomenon in which voters don’t entirely vote along partisan lines. In this case, many Republican-leaning voters who chose Trump for president also voted for Brown in the U.S. Senate race rather than going with GOP nominee Bernie Moreno.
While 2024 was likely a major disappointment for Brown, it is from that same source that he derives confidence about his chances this time around. Speaking to a group of supporters in Toledo one week ago, the three-time U.S. senator pointed to his overperformance that year as a sign that, in 2026, things will be different, particularly as a result of the president’s unpopularity in his second term.
What could also be different for Brown this year is the strength of his Republican opponent. While then-candidate Moreno lacked statewide name recognition and faced negative publicity over lawsuits filed against him from his time as a car salesman, Husted’s fortunes, thus far, have been a bit kinder.
While his name recognition doesn’t quite match Brown’s, despite years in the role of lieutenant governor and other statewide elected offices, Husted hasn’t seen as much negative publicity — though the Brown campaign and Ohio Democrats have criticized him for comments he made about those experiencing poverty, namely that “they’re not very experienced at navigating the real world.”
Cleveland’s WJW reported that Husted, in an interview, “explained that he was relaying a conversation he had with a woman who spent nearly three decades on food stamps.”
As the Brown campaign seeks to characterize this race as being between a candidate who knows the struggles of working people and an incumbent who’s out of touch, Husted’s campaign aims to characterize Brown as a Washington insider who overstayed his welcome and Husted as the face of something fresh.
Regardless of the candidate whose story voters find most convincing, that person won’t serve a full term after being elected in November. Husted, who currently occupies the senate seat Brown is seeking, was appointed to it by Gov. Mike DeWine, following then-Senator JD Vance’s ascension to the vice presidency. This is a special election that will determine who finishes out the last two years of Vance’s term. The seat will be up for grabs again in 2028, an election that will decide who gets to serve out a full, six-year term. That could, again, be a contest between Brown and Husted, or different candidates.
Returning to Brown’s Tuesday remarks, he also expressed confidence in the Democratic candidate for governor, Dr. Amy Acton, who polling has shown to be in a tight race against Republican Vivek Ramaswamy.
With regard to his own race, he spoke of wanting “to get this country back on track,” but “not to go back exactly to what we were.” On the same day of his event in Toledo, Brown’s campaign debuted a new ad in which he calls for a ban on stock trading by members of Congress and their spouses. During his senate career, Brown has been a part of bipartisan efforts to ban congressional stock trading, including in 2023, though without success. Despite a lack of success in the past, Brown told the Toledo Free Press that he’s “seen the number of votes [in support of a ban] grow” each time the issue has come up.
