CLEVELAND — Former Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, launched a comeback campaign Monday, setting the stage for a 2026 special election that could decide partisan control of the Senate.
Brown will challenge Sen. Jon Husted, the Republican whom Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine appointed this year to fill the vacancy created by JD Vance’s election as vice president.
“We had no intention, really, of running again,” Brown, speaking of himself and his wife, journalist Connie Schultz, said in an interview with NBC News. “We just heard from more and more people and saw how much worse it was getting. I spent my career, as you know, taking on interest groups and taking on this rigged system. And the system has been rigged for as long as I remember, but it’s clearly gotten worse.”
In a video accompanying his campaign launch, Brown lays out three principles important to him: “standing up for workers, treating everyone with dignity and respect, working as hard as possible.”
“I didn’t plan to run for office again, but when I see what’s going on, I know I can do something about it for Ohio,” Brown says in the video. “That’s why I’m running for Senate.”
Brown, 72, lost his race for a fourth term last year to Republican Bernie Moreno by about 3.5 percentage points as President Donald Trump carried Ohio by 11 points. Word of his decision to run for Senate — and not for governor, as many Ohio Democrats had been hoping — trickled out last week, reported first by Cleveland.com and confirmed by NBC News.
In a statement, Husted campaign spokesperson Tyson Shepard said Brown’s announcement “means Ohioans will face a clear choice in 2026.”
“For 30 years, he has imposed Washington’s problems on Ohio, pushing radical liberal policies that have left a lasting burden on the next generation,” Shepard added, referring to Brown. “Jon Husted offers the opposite approach, applying Ohio’s values and solutions to fix a broken Washington.”
Next year’s clash will determine who serves the two years remaining on the term Vance won in 2022. Brown was noncommittal when asked if he would seek a full six-year term in 2028 if he beats Husted.
“I don’t know,” Brown said. “I really, legitimately, don’t know.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., had aggressively lobbied Brown to choose a Senate bid over a run for governor and traveled twice to Ohio to persuade him to take on Husted. Brown and former Gov. Roy Cooper of North Carolina are two prized recruits in the Democrats’ battle to win back the Senate in next year’s midterm elections. With Republicans defending a 53-47 majority in the chamber, Democrats would need to net four seats.
After losing his re-election campaign last year, Brown and Schultz relocated from Cleveland to Bexley, Ohio, the Columbus suburb that’s home to the governor’s mansion. The move, which placed Brown and Schultz closer to their grandchildren and to Schultz’s teaching job at Denison University, nonetheless fueled chatter that he was leaning more toward a run for governor. In the meantime, Brown launched the Dignity of Work Institute, a nonprofit organization focused on workers issues.
Brown said it wasn’t just Schumer pushing him in one direction or another. He and Schultz heard from people everywhere, from the grocery store to their local Fourth of July parade.
“The decision was mine and Connie’s, and it was a hard decision, because I think I could do good work in either place,” Brown said. “But ultimately, because Ohio doesn’t have anybody in the Senate advocating for Ohio workers, I came down on that decision. I mean, it’s hard times for this state, it’s hard times for people. I could have gone either way in that case, but I just think I can have more impact in the Senate.”
Brown singled out Husted’s vote for the Trump-backed “big, beautiful bill,” a megabill that has come under fire for its cuts to Medicaid and other federal safety net programs. Brown said he’s specifically worried about Ohioans losing health insurance coverage in a state where, more than a decade ago, a Republican governor pushed through Medicaid expansion.
“The worst has been the big, whatever they call it — big, ugly bill, big, beautiful bill,” Brown said. “By any measure, this is the worst vote he’s cast in the Senate, but it’s a continuum of his running for special interests his whole career.”
Husted, 57, like Brown, has spent much of his adult life in public office. He served as the Ohio House speaker in the 2000s and as secretary of state — a job Brown held in the 1980s — in the 2010s. Most recently, Husted served as DeWine’s lieutenant governor.
In a joint statement Monday, Schumer and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., who chairs the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, cheered Brown’s decision.
“No one fights harder for Ohio than Sherrod Brown,” they said. “From securing Ohioans’ retirement and Social Security benefits to cracking down on fentanyl from China and Mexico, Sherrod will always do what’s right for Ohioans.”
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