Sherrod Brown wins Ohio U.S. Senate, returns to the Senate

Democrat Sherrod Brown has won the Ohio U.S. Senate race, defeating incumbent Republican Jon Husted, the Associated Press projected. Brown, a three-term former senator who lost his seat in 2024, will return to Capitol Hill and become just the seventh former U.S. senator since 1946 to lose and later regain a Senate seat. Husted was appointed to the seat by Gov. Mike DeWine in January 2023 after JD Vance became vice president; this election was held to fill the remainder of Vance’s term. The contest was close and expensive: the two campaigns together raised more than $80 million and, with outside groups, had spent over $422 million by mid-October. Major campaign issues included data centers, affordability, the war in Iran and health care costs, and Brown repeatedly accused Husted of being the “face of data centers” in Ohio. Brown joined a rally with former president Barack Obama on October 24, while Husted drew three October visits from former president Donald Trump; a leaked National Republican Senatorial Committee memo called data centers an “anchor” for Husted’s candidacy. Because this was a special election to finish the term Vance won in 2022, Brown is assured only two more years in the Senate and will have to run for reelection in 2028.