Now that Sherrod Brown, the state’s most prominent Democrat, has decided he will run next year to return to the U.S. Senate, the 2026 elections are beginning to take shape. Brown said Monday that he’s focused on beating incumbent Jon Husted (R-OH), Ohio’s former lieutenant governor, to head back to D.C.
Brown said he hadn’t intended to run again, “but I can’t stand on the sidelines and do nothing about this. The system is rigged against workers in this country and it has been for years. And I spent my career taking on that rigged system and I have seen in the last few months that the system is more rigged against workers than it has been.”
Brown said he talked with around 50 labor leaders and they assured him they will support his candidacy for the senate seat. Brown will also have support from national Democrats after meeting with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.
But the race will be a tough one.
Ohio Republican Party Chair Alex Triantifilou said Husted is a middle-of-the-road candidate who not only has support from the party but also from President Trump, who won’t be on the ballot next year as he was in 2024. But Triantifilou said Trump, who has won Ohio three times, will be a big factor.
“We feel pretty good about Sen. Husted and his chances here given his electoral history,” Triantafilou said, noting Husted has been elected to statewide office four times: twice as secretary of state and twice as Gov. Mike DeWine’s lieutenant governor.
And the race will be expensive. More than $483 million was spent in last November’s election when Brown lost his seat to Bernie Moreno. The winner gets just two years, the remainder of Vice President JD Vance’s term. The seat and its full six-year term will be on the ballot again in 2028.
Will the U.S. Senate race overshadow other statewide contests?
The news that Brown is running for U.S. Senate doesn’t come as a surprise for Paul Beck, political science professor emeritus at Ohio State University.
“The Senate is his familiar territory so my guess was early on that if he was going to run for anything it would be for the U.S. Senate,” said Beck, who has supported Brown in the past.
Brown’s decision means Dr. Amy Acton, Ohio’s health director under DeWine during the pandemic, will be the main Democratic candidate for governor, at least for now. Democratic former congressman Tim Ryan, who lost the 2022 U.S. Senate race to Vance, has said he is considering a run.
Beck said Democrats are at a disadvantage right now: “The bottom line is Democrats really don’t have much base strength in Ohio. And they don’t seem to have much of an ability to raise sizeable amounts of campaign funds.”
So far, there are announced Democratic candidates for
secretary of state and attorney general, but not for auditor or treasurer.
Republicans, on the other hand, are in a far better position. As of now, Acton would be up against Vivek Ramaswamy, a tech billionaire who ran against Trump for president and has won his endorsement. Ramaswamy has raised a record $9 million to Acton’s $1.4 million, which is a record for a Democratic candidate for governor at this point in the cycle.
The term-limited Republicans in the other four statewide executive offices are running for other statewide executive offices. The exception is Attorney General Dave Yost, who stepped out of the governor’s race a few months ago.
Tom Sutton, political science professor at Baldwin Wallace University, said Trump’s approval could work for Republican candidates now but cautioned there is a lot of time till the election next year.
“It will really depend on how the economy is doing going into the midterms of 2026. There’s a lot of concern about the tariffs that have been imposed by President Trump and the potential inflationary effect that might have,” Sutton said.
But Triantifilou said he thinks Trump will be an advantage for Republican candidates because he will remain popular.
“I have not seen a more durable politician in my lifetime,” Triantifilou said.
But Sutton and Beck said the U.S. Senate race will attract a lot of attention either way, and that could have an impact on the other statewide races.
