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Sherrod Brown Beats Jon Husted To Flip Ohio Senate Seat For Democrats
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Sherrod Brown defeats incumbent Jon Husted to flip Ohio Senate seat for Democrats. Brown returns to the Senate two years after losing in 2024.
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Ohio Senate comeback
Democrat Sherrod Brown prevailed in Ohio’s Senate race, beating Republican incumbent Jon Husted, NBC News projects.
Brown, 73, will return to the Senate and serve the remaining two years of the six-year term JD Vance won in 2022 and left after he was elected vice president.
Republican Gov. Mike DeWine appointed Husted, the state’s former lieutenant governor, to fill the Vance vacancy last year, and Husted, 59, faced an uncertain future after the defeat.
The race was “one of the year’s most combative and expensive Senate races,” and it described an onslaught of negative TV ads.
Brown won back a seat on Capitol Hill after defeating incumbent Republican Sen. Jon Husted, “according to a race call by the Associated Press.”
Data centers and Iran
The campaign centered on data centers and affordability, with Brown 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. The clash mirrored a national climate that exposed Republican vulnerabilities on issues such as the war with Iran, a related rise in gas prices and broader concerns about the economy and affordability.
The Guardian said Brown made lowering the cost of living for the working class a cornerstone of his campaign, and it said the contest was a special election to determine who would serve the final two years of the term JD Vance won in 2022. CBS News projected Brown’s victory as Democrats sought to win control of the Senate, and it said the projected victory comes as no senator since 1988 has made a successful comeback bid to the upper chamber after losing reelection.
What happens next
Brown’s win returned him to the US Senate, and the Guardian said the victory brings the Democrats closer to regaining control of the Senate.
Democrats need to win the seats they currently hold in Georgia, New Hampshire and Minnesota, and win at least four other seats to regain a majority in Congress’s upper chamber.
Brown will have to decide whether to seek re-election when the term ends after 2028, and it said the Ohio contest was unique because Husted and Brown stood off in a special election for the final two years of the term.
Brown is assured of only two more years in the U.S. Senate, and it said Brown will have to run for reelection in 2028 to keep the seat.
The win cements Brown, 73, as the most successful Democrat in Ohio over the last three decades, while it described Husted’s defeat as presenting an uncertain future for a long-tenured officeholder.