Former Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown will return to the Senate after defeating Sen. Jon Husted (R-OH) in the closely watched and expensive contest.
The race was called for Brown at 11:10 p.m. by the Associated Press. Brown garnered 48.6% against Husted’s 46.5%, with 87% of the vote counted.
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The contest was considered a toss-up by the Cook Political Report, but Brown led in recent polls. Brown was replaced in the Senate by Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-OH) in 2024 after three terms, or 18 years, in the upper chamber. The political household name in Ohio previously spent seven terms, or 14 years, in the House.
Brown’s record in Congress was repeatedly contrasted against Husted, a former Ohio lieutenant governor, secretary of state, and state lawmaker, although he was not well known nationally until he was appointed to the Senate to replace Vice President JD Vance in 2025.
Issues surrounding emerging technology, from data centers to cryptocurrency, dogged the campaigns in response to Ohio having the fifth-most data centers in the country and Brown’s 10 years as the top Democrat on the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee.
President Donald Trump traveled to Ohio multiple times in an attempt to help Husted, though his compliments of the senator’s physique arguably distracted from his closing message on the accomplishments of his second term and his defense of his economic and foreign policy, which had become a drag on Republicans across the country.
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“I don’t do this with men very often,” Trump said last month in Youngstown, Ohio. “I started examining his body because I didn’t know he was a great athlete. And I looked and I watched up and down. I looked at his a** and I looked at the whole. … And then I looked at his hands. Look at his hands. He’s got these like claws.”
Ohio’s Senate contest was a special election, as required by state law when a vacancy occurs, meaning Brown will again appear on the 2028 ballot for the regularly scheduled election.