Former Sen. Sherrod Brown launched his return campaign Aug. 18 for the U.S. Senate election in 2026 after losing his seat to Republican Bernie Moreno in 2024.
According to Sherrod Brown for Ohio, Brown’s return campaign emphasizes his advocacies for reasonable wages, affordable healthcare, worker pensions and consumer protections in his campaign.
Brown will be running against several other democrats in the Democratic primary election, vying the chance to run against incumbent Republican Sen. Jon Husted, according to the Federal Election Commission.
Husted was appointed by Gov. Mike DeWine to the U.S. Senate in January, following the vacancy seat left from the election of JD Vance as Vice President. He previously served in the Ohio State Senate and held the position of Ohio’s Secretary of State.
Sean Michael, a junior studying political science and the president of the Ohio University College Democrats, said Brown’s last campaign was successful in the amount of advocacy they carried out.
“When you were in Athens last election, you constantly ran into people advocating for Sherrod Brown,” Michael said. “They had door knockers almost non-stop around the county, and he was traveling all around the states.”
However, Michael said he believes to be successful in the new campaign, Brown must reintroduce himself to Ohio voters.
“Ohio has known him for a long time, but I think a lot of Ohioans don’t exactly know what he stands for,” Michael said. “Also, with the amount of negative campaign ads that were out in the last cycle about Sherrod Brown, a lot of people got a false sense about what Sherrod Brown stands for.”
Michael also emphasized Democrats need to reach people who are not voting due to political fatigue.
“There’s just so much exposure to a lot of different political advertisements, a lot of times very incorrect in their statements, that has created a lot of feeling of numbness among voters, where they feel like no party cares about them,” Michael said.
According to the Ohio Secretary of State website, in the 2024 general election, almost 29% of Ohioans registered to vote did not make it to the polls.
Furthermore, in the 2024 presidential election, 62% of adults reported they were worn out by coverage of political campaigns and candidates, according to the Pew Research Center.
Michael said candidates can address this growing fatigue by supporting policies a majority of Americans are in favor of and being a representative voters feel they can relate to.
Aiden Fox, a senior studying political science and the president of the OU College Republicans, said he is in favor of politicians who make an effort to be personable.
“These are people that you can have a healthy conversation with, and that’s the energy that I enjoy seeing,” Fox said. “I also enjoy feeling like my candidates are people and not just people trying to get my vote and then ignore me for the rest of their term.”
Fox also said he disliked Brown’s claims he is not on only one side of the political spectrum.
“I don’t like how he paints himself as a moderate centrist, like a bulldog democrat type of guy,” Fox said. “When you actually analyze his voting record, he still sides with his party for the vast majority of the time. He’s not actively working across the aisle, which he says he tries to do.”
Fox made it clear no change in campaigning could convince him to support Brown.
“For me to vote for Sherrod Brown, there would really have to be a complete imbecile running for the republican ticket,” Fox said.
Brown previously held the senator position from 2007 to 2025, where he served as the chair of the Committee on Banking and on the Housing and Urban Affairs Committee.
Before Brown’s political career, he graduated from Yale and joined the faculty at The Ohio State University, where he also earned his master's degree. Brown later served in the Ohio State House of Representatives before becoming Ohio’s Secretary of State in 1983.
Since then, Brown has served in the U.S. House of Representatives for six consecutive terms, after which he became a U.S. Senator.
The U.S. Senate special election will be held on Nov. 3, 2026.
