Sherrod Brown is headed back to the Senate after a two-year absence, scoring a comeback victory in Ohio and giving Democrats another seat in the upper chamber.
Brown represented Ohio for 18 years before losing by four percentage points in 2024. He reclaimed the seat by defeating Republican Sen. Jon Husted, who had been appointed to complete Vice President JD Vance’s term.
With 85% of the vote counted, Brown held 48.4% compared with 46.7% for Husted, according to the Associated Press.
Democrats brought in former President Barack Obama to campaign for Brown and Democratic gubernatorial nominee Amy Acton, who faced a controversial advertisement from her opponent that featured her estranged mother.
Brown has spent much of his political career presenting himself as a defender of the middle class. On the campaign trail, he cast Husted as overly aligned with billionaires and powerful elites.
“Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, Donald Trump, these three gentlemen, shall we call them, and others, have poured hundreds of millions into this race,” Brown said.
Obama echoed that argument during a rally held several weeks before Election Day.
“This is not a guy who enriched himself cozying up to corporations. He’s still wearing the same suit he was in when I met him 20 years ago,” the former president said.
Brown’s win could carry consequences well beyond the Senate race itself.
A Democratic victory in the home state of Vice President JD Vance, widely viewed as a future leader of the Republican Party, could deliver a serious setback to his presidential ambitions.
Before the election, Vance acknowledged the importance of his ties to Ohio. Born and raised there, he represented the state in the Senate for two years before becoming vice president.
“What do I bring as a surrogate? I mean, look, this is my home state,” he told reporters in mid-October. “Obviously, I have a lot of friends here, a lot of people who I love and who love me. But I do think I understand this state probably instinctively better than I understand most states because of my connection to it.”
Ohio had been steadily moving toward the Republican Party.
President Trump carried the state by 11 points in the 2024 election, and both he and Vance campaigned aggressively there ahead of the midterms.
Trump also went viral while campaigning for Husted after making remarks about the senator’s “a–.”
“I look at Jon. I studied his physique,” Trump said at a rally the week before the election.
“I studied the feet, the legs, the heads, the shoulders,” he added, saying that patting Husted on the shoulder was like “hitting a piece of steel.”
Trump then described the extensive campaigning he had done for the Republican senator, saying: “I saved his a–. I saved his a–. I saved him. He was down and now he’s up.”
Even that effort was not enough to keep the Senate seat in Republican hands.
Both parties had invested heavily in the closely watched contest.
Outside spending groups dropped $270 million, more than any other state’s Senate race except for Texas, according to Open Secrets.
Adding in money spent by the political parties on behalf of their candidates, spending on the race hit $477 million, according to AdImpact.