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Democratic former U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown has won back a seat on Capitol Hill, defeating incumbent Republican Sen. Jon Husted after a close and expensive battle, according to a race call by the Associated Press.
Brown is the seventh former U.S. senator since 1946 to lose his seat and then return to the Senate later.
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After serving three terms, he was defeated by Bernie Moreno in 2024 in what the ad tracking site AdImpact ranked as the most expensive non-presidential election on record at the time (that honor now goes to this year's Senate race in Texas).
This was Husted's first race for the U.S. Senate. He was appointed to the seat by Gov. Mike DeWine in January 2023 after JD Vance won the vice presidency. But Husted has had a long career in elected office in Ohio, serving as speaker of the Ohio House, the secretary of state and lieutenant governor.
Ohio has been a Republican stronghold for years, with President Trump winning Ohio in the last three presidential cycles. But because of Brown's name recognition, polls showed the race was close all year, and it got more attention amid building signs of a national "blue wave" for Democrats.
The campaign started quietly, with neither Brown nor Husted doing a splashy launch. Both leaned toward smaller events at first, but joined big rallies that came up in the last month.
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Brown was part of a rally led by former President Barack Obama on Oct. 24. And Husted met up with Trump in his three visits to Ohio in October, and became one of several male office-seekers who earned odd praise from Trump on their physiques.
Data centers, affordability, the war in Iran and health care costs were major issues in the campaign. Brown had made data centers a key talking point, calling Husted "the face of data centers" in Ohio because of his involvement with such deals when he was lieutenant governor. A leaked memo from the National Republican Senatorial Committee defined data centers as "the anchor hanging around Husted's neck" and suggested if Husted lost, it would affect future races around the country. (NPR hasn't independently confirmed the authenticity of the memo.)
Brown far outraised Husted, with the candidates together bringing in more than $80 million. Ohio was the only state with a close U.S. Senate race where Democrats had more broadcast TV ads than Republicans, according to AdImpact. As of mid-October, the candidates and outside groups had spent more than $422 million, making this race one of the most expensive U.S. Senate contests in the country.
Brown is assured of only two more years in the U.S. Senate. Because this year's election was to fill the rest of the term Vance was elected to in 2022, Brown will have to run for reelection in 2028 to keep the seat.
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