If Democrats hope to retain control of the Senate this November, Sherrod Brown’s Ohio seat is a must-win contest. But Brown is facing strong headwinds following a string of Republican victories in what was once a perennial swing state.
The latest RealClearPolitics average has Brown leading Republican challenger Bernie Moreno by five points – a sizable gap for Moreno to overcome by Election Day. But given Brown’s radical voting record in an increasingly conservative state and former President Donald Trump’s presence on the ballot, Moreno should have all the political ammo he needs to take down Brown.
Brown was first elected to the Senate in 2006, when he defeated current Republican Governor Mike DeWine. He is now running for his fourth term. While Ohio has trended red during his time in office, Brown has benefitted from running for re-election in 2012 and 2018 – both relatively good years for Democrats. Obama won the Buckeye State in 2012, and Democrats saw some gains in the 2018 midterms during Trump’s first term in office.
But 2024 is a different political environment altogether. For the first time, Brown will be on a ballot with Trump at the top. The 45th president won Ohio by about eight points in both 2016 and 2020, and is leading by about that margin in the latest polls. The state also re-elected DeWine by 25 points in 2022, along with electing Republican supermajorities to both chambers of the state legislature and sending Republican JD Vance to replace the retiring Rob Portman in the Senate.
However, as the polling averages reflect, Brown has some noteworthy advantages that give him more than a fighting chance this year.
For starters, he is undoubtedly better-known to voters than Moreno, a successful businessman who has not held public office before. Brown began his political career in the Ohio state house in 1974, and has spent the last 50 years cultivating relationships in the state. He has only lost one election in his five-decade political career – a 1990 contest for Ohio Secretary of State to future Ohio Governor Bob Taft, the great-grandson of President William Howard Taft.
Moreno’s challenge is to break Brown’s portrayal of himself as a “Blue Dog” Democrat and political moderate by exposing his radical voting record.
One recent ad released by Moreno’s campaign seeks to tie Brown to the border crisis, noting that “for nearly 50 years, politician Sherrod Brown helped create the crisis at our border, voting with radicals like Kamala Harris to give illegals taxpayer-funded stimulus checks, healthcare, and even Social Security.” The spot refers to Brown’s support for Biden’s $1.9 trillion “American Rescue Plan,” which touched off the country’s inflationary spiral in addition to enabling illegal aliens to receive stimulus checks.
While professing to care about border security, in the Senate Brown has voted against an amendment preventing illegal aliens from receiving Social Security checks, vocally opposed Trump’s border wall proposals, cast the deciding vote to block an amendment to send $500 million to Border Patrol to detect drugs at the border, and was an original co-sponsor of the End Mass Deportation Act.
Another digital ad unveiled earlier this year slammed Brown’s support for the lawfare against Trump, featuring a video of Brown saying that “Biden’s politics now are not much different from mine.”
“It doesn’t matter the issue, Sherrod Brown stands with Biden, even as he turns the judicial system into a weapon to interfere in the presidential election,” a narrator says in the video. “Senator Sherrod Brown stands by, refusing to condemn Biden’s politically motivated witch hunt.”
Brown, recognizing Trump’s popularity in the state, has been quieter than most Democrats about the former president in order to avoid alienating the majority of Ohioans who voted for Trump in 2016 and 2020. But directly tying Brown to Democrats’ weaponization of government against Trump could knock Brown off the tightrope he is trying to walk.
In all, Brown voted with President Biden 99 percent of the time from 2021-2023 and 97 percent of the time from 2023 until now. During the Trump administration, however, he consistently voted against the former president’s America First agenda, including the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which delivered historic gains for Ohio workers.
In 2020, Brown also went all-in on the far-left “Defund the Police” movement, directly aligning himself with Senators Cory Booker and Kamala Harris. “We have to rethink how we police,” he tweeted at the time. “No more chokeholds. No more unchecked police misconduct. No more excess military equipment. Instead, prioritize healthcare, housing, and education.”
Brown has built his political career around appealing to Independents and moderate Republicans on the campaign trail while voting in line with far-left policies in office. How well Moreno and the GOP can hammer home the truth about Brown’s charade to voters will determine if he gets six more years in office or if Ohioans will send another Republican to represent them in Washington.
Kristen Ziccarelli is a graduate of Christopher Newport University and the University of Edinburgh in Scotland.
