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Sherrod Brown is returning to the Senate after a two-year absence, notching a revenge win in Ohio and handing the Democrats another seat in the upper chamber.
Brown, who represented Ohio for 18 years, lost by four points in 2024. But victory was his after he challenged Republican Sen. Jon Husted, who was appointed to fill out Vice President JD Vance’s term.
With 85% of the votes in, Brown had 48.4% to Husted’s 46.7%, according to the Associated Press.
Democrats sent in former President Barack Obama to campaign for Brown and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Amy Acton, who became subject to a controversial ad from her opponent featuring her estranged mother.
Brown has long positioned himself as a champion of the middle class and he used his time on the campaign trail to portray Husted as too close to billionaires and 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 also made the point for him at a rally held a few weeks before the election.
“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 victory could have a more far-reaching effect.
The Democratic victory in the backyard of Vice President JD Vance, heir apparent to the Republican Party, could be a tough blow to his presidential ambitions.
Vance, ahead of the election, admitted he had ownership of Ohio. Born and raised in the state, he represented it in the Senate for two years before he became 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 trending red.
President Trump carried the state by 11 points in the 2024 election and both he and Vance campaigned there hard in the run-up to the midterms.
He went viral campaigning for Husted and remaking about his great “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 went on to talk about all the campaigning he did for the GOP senator, saying: “I saved his a–. I saved his a–. I saved him. He was down and now he’s up.”
But it wasn’t enough to keep the Senate seat in Republican hands.
Both sides were heavily invested in the 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.
