Sherrod Brown wins back Ohio Senate seat, ousting Trump-backed Jon Husted
The former senator beat the Republican incumbent in a special election for the rest of JD Vance’s term. The win gives Democrats another seat in their push for a Senate majority.
COLUMBUS, Nov 4 – Sherrod Brown is going back to the Senate. The Democrat won Ohio’s special Senate election on Tuesday, beating Republican Senator Jon Husted.
It marks a major comeback for Brown. Just two years ago, he lost his own Senate seat to Republican Bernie Moreno, ending his 18 years in the chamber.
Now, he has demonstrated that a Democrat can still win statewide in Ohio, a state where Republicans have held power since Trump’s rise in 2016.
The victory also strengthens his party’s position in the battle for control of the Senate. Republicans entered Tuesday’s elections with 53 seats, while Democrats held 47. Democrats need to gain four more seats to take control of the chamber in January.
This contest was a special election, held to fill the remainder of the term JD Vance won in 2022 before leaving the Senate to become vice president.
Republican Governor Mike DeWine appointed Husted to the seat in January 2025. Husted had previously served as the state’s lieutenant governor. The winner of Tuesday’s election will serve until January 3, 2029.
President Donald Trump endorsed Husted and traveled to Ohio in the final weeks of the campaign to appear alongside him. The goal was to encourage Republican voters who might otherwise have stayed home to turn out and vote.
However, Trump proved to be a difficult sell for many voters this year. In an October Reuters/Ipsos poll, 78 percent of Americans said they blamed Trump’s policies for the high cost of living.
Prices have continued to rise. Gas became more expensive after the United States and Israel went to war with Iran in February, and many voters also pointed to Trump’s tariffs on imported goods as a factor driving up costs.
Brown made those economic pressures the centerpiece of his campaign. He has long positioned himself as a champion of working people and spent much of the race discussing prices, jobs, and health care.
Husted, meanwhile, ran as a strong ally of the president. He argued that Ohio voters had already rejected Brown two years earlier and should do so again.
The final New York Times/Siena College poll showed Brown at 49 percent and Husted at 44 percent among likely voters, giving Brown a five-point lead heading into Election Day.
In the end, Brown secured the victory in a state that Trump won by double digits in each of his three presidential campaigns, demonstrating that Democrats can still compete statewide in Ohio despite the state’s strong Republican lean in recent years.
His win came on a strong night for Democrats in other Senate races across the country. In Texas, James Talarico defeated Ken Paxton, according to an Associated Press projection, becoming the first Democrat to win a statewide race in Texas since 1994.
In North Carolina, Democrat Roy Cooper won a seat previously held by a Republican, the Associated Press reported. In South Carolina, NBC News and CBS News projected that Democrat Annie Andrews had defeated Republican Senator Darline Graham.
Democrats also held on to seats in Georgia and New Hampshire, protecting key parts of their Senate map. Results were still coming in from other important races, including those in Alaska, Iowa, Maine, and Michigan.
Republican Senator Ashley Moody held on to her seat in Florida’s special Senate election, with early results showing a tighter race than in previous statewide contests.
Brown first won his Senate seat in 2006. Before that, he served in the House of Representatives for 14 years and also served as Ohio’s secretary of state, giving him decades of experience in elected office.
He will be sworn in to the Senate in January.
