Sherrod Brown toured a Guernsey County farm on a recent spring afternoon, taking in the cows and rolling hills that surrounded him.
This wasn’t another day of retired life for Brown, the 73-year-old former U.S. senator from Ohio. It was part of his comeback plan.
Brown is running for U.S. Senate in November against Sen. Jon Husted, a contest that could decide whether Republicans maintain their slim Senate majority or Democrats take control. The stakes are familiar. Less than two years ago, Brown lost to Sen. Bernie Moreno in a bitter, expensive and nationally-watched Senate race.
A lot has changed since then.
Gov. Mike DeWine appointed Husted, 58, to the Senate after JD Vance became vice president. Republicans in Congress passed a law to cut taxes, Medicaid and food assistance. The cost of gas and other goods soared because of tariffs and the war with Iran.
Husted and Brown now face the same challenge: convincing Ohio voters they’re better off without the other guy.
“This could be the hardest-fought race in the country,” said David Niven, a political scientist at the University of Cincinnati who worked for former Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland.
Who is Jon Husted?
Husted didn’t expect to be running for the U.S. Senate this year.
He spent years laying the groundwork for a campaign to replace term-limited DeWine as governor. But Vance’s ascendancy to the White House, plus the growing popularity of Vivek Ramaswamy among the GOP, forced DeWine to play political chess and set his former lieutenant governor on a new course.
As senator, Husted champions issues close to his heart, such as workforce development and social media safety for kids. He pushed for rural health funding in the tax law. He also backs a bill that would require photo ID for voters nationwide, a policy he opposed when he served as Ohio secretary of state.
Several times now, Husted has rejected a resolution to halt the conflict in Iran.
“Iran is the one that’s doing this,” Husted told the statehouse bureau. “America is trying to get (the Strait of Hormuz) open. Iran is keeping it shut down. It is a challenging circumstance at the moment, but we need to remain strong. They don’t understand anything else.”
On the campaign trail, Husted avoided the messy GOP primaris that besieged Vance and Moreno. That gave him more time to manage a different challenge. While Husted can point to years of experience in Ohio government, polls indicate that voters don’t know much about him.
Husted dismissed the issue, saying Brown has better name recognition because he’s unpopular and spent decades in politics.
“The voters have already rendered a verdict on him, and that verdict was, ‘You’re fired,'” Husted said. “He was in Congress for 32 years. I’ve been here for slightly over one. I’m trying to clean up the mess that he created, and I’m going to ask voters to give me a chance to complete that job.”
‘People are more pissed off’
Both Husted and Brown know one issue will dominate all others this cycle: the economy.
At a campaign event in Northeast Ohio with Louisiana Sen. John Kennedy, Husted touted parts of the tax law that increased the child tax credit and eliminated taxes on tips and overtime. GOP policies, he says, are spurring job growth and putting more money in people’s pockets.
As for high prices? Husted and other Republicans contend the blame lies with Democrats, including Brown.
But midterm elections are typically a referendum on the party in power − not the leaders who predated them. And voters aren’t looking backward, said Jessica Taylor, Senate and governors editor for the Cook Political Report.
“Previous presidents have understood that members of their own party need distance during midterm elections,” Taylor said. “Trump is not a normal president, and he does not allow members of his party to get any distance from him. This is the quandary that Republicans across the board this election cycle are in.”
Brown is counting on the GOP message to fall flat. From farms to breweries, the former senator has highlighted his past work to cap the cost of insulin and restore employee pensions. He also revived a refrain familiar to anyone who knows him: Washington is rigged against the middle class.
“People are more pissed off now,” Brown said at an event in suburban Columbus. “They’re pissed off because we elected a president and a Senate who said their number one goal was to bring prices down. They’ve done nothing to bring prices down, except go to war, which brings prices up.”
Ohio can expect ‘kitchen sink’ of ads
None of that means Brown will sail to victory in November.
On one hand, Brown outperformed Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024 and boasts the best track record among Democrats who ran for statewide office over the past 20 years. But Ohio is a red state, and most voters know where they stand on Brown after his lengthy tenure − whether they like him or not.
“(Brown) has a hard time making the case that he’s an outsider when he spent so much time in Washington,” Taylor said.
The uncertainty on both sides is evident by the money pouring into Ohio. The Democratic Senate Majority PAC plans to spend $40 million helping Brown, and its Republican counterpart reserved $79 million for Husted. Brown’s 2024 race against Moreno was the most expensive Senate contest in the country.
Recent ads from Brown and Husted sparred over campaign donations from associates of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Niven said voters likely won’t be inspired by that particular issue − but it’s an example of the “kitchen sink” to come in this race.
“By the time we get to November,” Niven said, “you’ll have every bad thing that can be said about Husted or Brown.”
State government reporter Haley BeMiller can be reached at hbemiller@usatodayco.com or @haleybemiller on X.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Will Sherrod Brown make a comeback? Not if Sen. Jon Husted can help it
Reporting by Haley BeMiller, Columbus Dispatch / The Columbus Dispatch
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