Brown ousts Husted in battleground Ohio Senate race

By Caroline Boda
The Center Square

Democrat Sherrod Brown is going back to the U.S. Senate, defeating U.S. Sen. Jon Husted, R-Ohio, in a race that could decide control of the chamber.

Brown had 48.6% of the vote, with 87% of ballots tallied. The Associated Press called the race late Tuesday night.

The win marks a comeback for Brown, who lost reelection to U.S. Sen. Bernie Moreno, R-Ohio, in 2024. He previously represented Ohio as a senator for 18 years between 2007 and 2025.

Husted was appointed to the Senate by Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine in January 2025 to replace Vice President JD Vance.

Tuesday’s special election was a contest to fill the remainder of Vance’s six-year Senate term, which he won in 2022. Brown will serve the final two years of Vance’s term and would have to run for reelection in 2028 to win a full six-year term.

Senate Republicans went into the midterms with a tight 53-47 voting majority. To take back control of the chamber, Democrats needed to flip four seats while maintaining all the ones they currently hold.

Data centers emerged as a key issue for voters in Ohio’s Senate race this election cycle.

The candidates’ pitch to voters on the campaign trail centered on how to address the multibillion-dollar OpenAI data center project coming to southeastern Ohio. The project is set to be one of the largest data centers in the world.

Brown and Husted agreed that tech companies, not households, should be responsible for the power their data centers use, but they clashed on who is responsible for data center projects already underway.

In a campaign ad, Brown accused Husted of leading “the push to bring data centers to Ohio” and giving away “billions of tax dollars to make it happen.” Husted said the decision to build data centers should belong to local communities.

Both candidates’ campaigns focused on addressing inflation, an issue voters ranked as their top concern ahead of the midterms, according to polling by The Center Square.

Husted said tax cuts were the most effective way to bring costs down for consumers. He voted for the Republicans’ 2025 tax and spending package, dubbed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, and touted it as “the largest tax cut in American history for middle-class families” in a campaign ad.

Brown criticized Republicans’ economic legislation, saying the 2017 Trump tax cuts benefited wealthy taxpayers while leaving the middle class behind.

“All they’ve done is made things worse for Ohioans, handing over your hard-earned money to corporations and to billionaires,” Brown said.

Brown raised more than triple that of Husted. Brown reported $68.4 million in total funds in his latest Federal Election Commission filings, while Husted reported $19.9 million.