The Cleveland Plain Dealer reported Tuesday that Sherrod Brown, a three-term U.S. senator who lost to Cleveland auto dealer Bernie Moreno in last year’s election, has decided to run for the Senate seat JD Vance had before he was elected vice president. The Plain Dealer quoted Ohio labor leaders who said Brown told them of his plan to run for the seat now occupied by former Ohio Lt. Gov. Jon Husted. Brown, who would give Democrats a chance at reclaiming the Senate, is expected to formally announce his intentions within the next two weeks.
Brown, who would give Democrats a chance at reclaiming the Senate, is expected to formally announce within the next two weeks.
The news doesn’t come as a big surprise. When Brown lost to Moreno, few people in Ohio politics expected the populist Democrat to walk off into the sunset. And the signs of his potential return have been hard to miss. He and his wife relocated to Columbus from the Cleveland area this year, which added to speculation that he was biding his time for a political comeback. When he and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer were seen huddling in a Columbus restaurant in late July, it seemed clear to political insiders Schumer was part of a recruitment campaign to convince Brown to run in 2026.
The news that the 72-year-old Brown is running has been enthusiastically heralded by Ohio Democrats who see it as a recruitment coup for the party in its uphill battle to unseat Husted, who was appointed by Gov. Mike DeWine. Many Ohioans couldn’t tell you who Husted is, but almost everybody knows Brown. After some 50 years in public office, his wide name recognition in the state is undisputed. He’s a Democrat in a red state with a track record of winning against Republicans. Yes, Moreno, a Republican political newcomer, ended Brown’s winning streak last year when he won by about 3.5 percentage points. But President Donald Trump won the state by 11 points, which suggests that Brown appealed to a segment of voters who chose Trump. Clearly, Moreno benefited from Trump’s coattails.
Husted cast his lot with the top 10% over the welfare of working Ohioans when he voted for Trump’s debt-ballooning $4 trillion tax cut to the ultra-rich on the backs of the poor. So in 2026, without Trump leading the ticket, Husted could be vulnerable to a well-experienced challenger with a chip on his shoulder who can effectively energize an already highly motivated base to turn out in droves for the midterms. By the time voters go to the polls next year, who knows how much fallout there will have been from the anything but “beautiful bill” Husted supported? But a sufficient number of Ohioans is likely to be fighting mad about sky-high prices, shuttered factories, dropped health insurance, shredded safety nets, gutted public services and a reduction in vital veterans’ support. There’s also likely to be anger at armed military in the streets and sprawling detention centers for immigrants that simulate concentration camps.
Brown will work to make Husted own the pain caused to Ohio families who will lose their SNAP benefits, to Ohio veterans who will be denied care to due to mass staffing cuts and eliminated services, and to the strategically delayed (until after the midterms) Medicaid cuts and work requirements that could leave 440,000 Ohioans uninsured.
Expect him to launch a sustained offensive against Husted’s rubber-stamp endorsement of historic cuts to Medicaid and food assistance.
Expect Brown to lead the charge for human dignity over despair, justice over lawlessness, better outcomes for everyday Americans over what the Trumpian plutocracy offers in scraps to everyone but the favored wealthy. Expect him to launch a sustained offensive against Husted’s rubber-stamp endorsement of historic cuts to Medicaid and food assistance that will be paid for by hundreds of thousands of uninsured and hungry constituents.
But Brown cannot wage the same old-school, play-it-safe campaign he ran in 2024, when even challenger Moreno mocked him publicly for his timidity to make waves. He cannot pull punches. He cannot misread the moment or the mindset of rank-and-file Democrats, independents and Never-Trumpers who are screaming for bold, authentic, tell-it-like-it-is fighters to save the country. They have had it with play-by-the-book, norms-abiding, feckless politicians who talk like infuriating politicians. If Brown can make it personal with Ohio voters who feel betrayed by Husted and his party, who are drowning in the cost of living, struggling to afford tariff-inflated groceries, utilities, out-of-pocket medical care and ever rising rent on incomes stretched to the max, he can win.
If he can make it personal with Ohio farmers reeling from Trump’s funding cuts to promised subsidies and market-destroying tariffs slapped on key trading partners, he can broaden his appeal in rural communities. If he can make it personal about growing numbers of children and seniors denied food aid in the bill Husted endorsed, he can make empathy a call for action. If he can make it personal on immigrants Ohioans know and respect being treated like dogs as masked thugs raid farms and Home Depot parking lots to stuff them into unmarked vans to be disappeared, he can be a welcomed voice for humanity, decency and the rule of law to forcefully counter a lawless Trump regime Husted supports. Ohio Demcorats haven’t cultivated a farm team of young, communications-savvy Democrats who can win a statewide election. Thus, Brown is the only real chance Democrats have against Husted. In addition to having to defend the big, awful bill to constituents on the losing end of unpaid-for giveaways to the wealthiest Americans, Husted, a former state lawmaker, will also have to defend himself from the stench of being associated with a bribery scandal that involved the utility company FirstEnergy spending $61 million for a $1 billion bailout and resulted in a former Republican Ohio House Speaker being sentenced to 20 years in federal prison. Text messages between a FirstEnergy CEO and a vice president who have since been charged in an alleged federal racketeering conspiracy related to the bribery scandal include descriptions of phone conversations they say they had with Husted about the legislation— some he apparently initiated — and reveal that they considered him the lawmaker handling the details of the bailout legislation. Husted, who was never charged with a crime, has said he didn’t know about any bribes regarding the bailout legislation that he helped get passed. If Brown taps into the growing movement demanding a course correction, raises enough money to compete with the ton of cash coming Husted’s way and reminds voters why they sent him to the U.S. Senate three times before, he could well return to the upper chamber on Capitol Hill in a blue-wave election. But “if” is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. Husted has to be considered the favorite. A Brown win would be an upset.
Marilou Johanek
Marilou Johanek is a veteran Ohio print and broadcast journalist who has covered state and national politics in addition to early writing and producing stints at CBS News and CNN. The Ohio native has also analyzed policymaking and political players as a longtime newspaper editorial writer and columnist. She is currently a weekly columnist for the Ohio Capital Journal, which is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization. 
