A Democrat hasn’t won statewide office in Ohio since Sherrod Brown was reelected to the senate in 2018.
That year, Brown defeated Republican challenger Jim Renacci with 53% of the vote, or about 2.36 million votes to about 2.1 million votes for Renacci.
Brown was defeated by Republican Bernie Moreno in 2024 by about 50% to 46%. In 2024, Donald Trump was on the ballot, driving up turnout to over 70% and Brown, despite losing the race, received about 300,000 more votes than 2018, with Libertarian Don Kissick receiving about 3%.
Brown is back on the ballot this year, facing Republican Jon Husted. Husted was appointed to the seat after Vice President JD Vance resigned in 2024. This is Husted’s first campaign for Senate.
This year’s election is similar to 2018 — it’s a midterm election, halfway through President Donald Trump’s term and the president’s approval ratings are low.
And Sherrod Brown’s presence on the ballot may serve to drive up support for other Democrats, like gubernatorial candidate Amy Acton, said David Cohen, director of the Applied Politics Program at University of Akron.
“Sherrod Brown will likely have some coattails in which he pulls, or brings support, for not only Acton but also all of the statewide Democratic candidates,” said Cohen.
The election may come down to who shows up to the polls in a few counties, said Cohen, including Ottawa, Trumbull and Mahoning Counties.
“Can he improve his numbers in those counties two years after he lost them is a big question,” Cohen said.
A September poll by Bowling Green State University found both races within the margin of error statewide — Acton leads Republican candidate Vivek Ramaswamy 48% to 45% and Brown leads Husted 48% to 45%.
The poll showed strong unfavorable numbers for Trump — 60% of the 1,000 respondents somewhat or strongly disapprove of the job Trump is doing.
“Donald Trump’s stock has gone down in Ohio, quite a bit,” said Bowling Green Professor and polling lab director Robert Alexander. “The economy is really dominating the narrative. When you’re looking at gas prices, particularly diesel prices hitting record highs, you’re looking at grocery prices that are really stunning to a lot of people — it has certainly made its way into public conversation essentially everywhere.”
Ohio Wesleyan University Associate Professor Brianna Mack agreed that the races for senate and governor are “a toss up.”
The counties Mack pointed to as likely to be crucial are Wood County, around Bowling Green State University, Delaware County, which includes Ohio Wesleyan University, and Mahoning and Hamilton counties.
The challenge for Democrats, according to Mack, will be getting their voters to turn out this year.
“It’s a very demoralizing time,” said Mack. “If Brown wants that ‘blue typhoon’ or ‘blue wave’ that will lead to his return to D.C., there has to be, like, a radical re-evaluation of his strategy.”
Mack questioned the decision by both Acton and, so far, Brown to avoid debating their opponents.
“I think that it was a terrible decision not to debate Bernie Moreno in 2024 and honestly let the extended campaign end up being, you know, a race of advertisements,” Mack said.
Mack and Cohen both pointed to the need to drive up margins in Democratic strongholds like Cuyahoga, Summit and Franklin counties as another key to victory for Acton and Brown.
According to Case Western Reserve University Associate Professor of Political Science Justin Buchler, the background conditions are what will determine these races — a midterm election with a sitting Republican president vs. Ohio’s Republican lean; the president’s overall approval ration combined with assessments of the economy.
“If you look at President Trump’s first midterm election, the 2018 midterm election, there were also Democratic gains, but the state of the economy in 2018 was relatively strong overall,” Buchler said. “The economy is not nearly as strong this year.”
Buchler said there have only been two recent exceptions to the rule about midterm losses for the president’s party — 1998 because of backlash against President Bill Clinton’s impeachment and 2002 because President George Bush’s approval was very high after Sept. 11.
This reporting is part of Ideastream's Listen, Engage, Vote initiative. This summer, our staff went to libraries across Northeast Ohio to hear what people cared about ahead of the midterms. We're using those conversations with voters to help inform our election coverage.
