Sherrod Brown Defeats Sen. Jon Husted in Ohio, Completing Comeback Bid

Former Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown has defeated Republican incumbent Jon Husted in one of the year's most combative and expensive Senate contests, NBC News projects, completing a comeback that will return him to Washington two years after Ohio voters turned him out of office.

Brown, who lost his bid for a fourth term in 2024, will serve the remaining two years of the six-year term JD Vance won in 2022 and gave up after being elected vice president. Republican Gov. Mike DeWine appointed Husted, the state's former lieutenant governor, to fill the vacancy last year.

The result cements Brown, 73, as the most successful Ohio Democrat of the last three decades. For Husted, 59, the defeat presents an uncertain future for a long-tenured officeholder.

The race brought an onslaught of negative television advertising and 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. Worries over data center construction for artificial intelligence companies hit particularly hard in Ohio.

In the race's closing weeks, an ad in Ohio's other marquee contest, the battle for governor, raised concerns that backlash against Republican Vivek Ramaswamy could hurt Husted. Ramaswamy's campaign had put $4 million behind an attack ad featuring the estranged mother of his Democratic rival, Amy Acton, who has not seen her mother since her then-stepfather was charged with raping her as a child nearly 50 years ago.

As a tech-focused lieutenant governor, Husted championed data centers as a way of the future, a position that Brown and Democrats relentlessly exploited over the course of the campaign. The issue loomed as such a liability that the National Republican Senatorial Committee warned in an August memo that it could doom his candidacy.

Husted had been running for governor, a position he has long coveted, when the Vance vacancy shook up Ohio politics and left him facing a potentially grueling Republican primary against Ramaswamy, a friend and businessman who was also preparing to launch a campaign for the job. Instead, Husted accepted DeWine's appointment while keeping his $6 million gubernatorial war chest intact, a Plan B in the eyes of some GOP observers. An early endorsement from President Donald Trump helped him avoid a messy Senate primary, but he also overcame concerns that he was running a halfhearted campaign. "I'm, like, an Ohio guy. D.C. is not my place," Husted said at a Stark County GOP picnic in August, adding that "you have to have somebody there that knows your state, is going to fight for you."

Brown, meanwhile, faced persistent scrutiny over his 50 years in public office, with Husted and Republicans framing him as a career politician with little to show for it. In addition to the data center attacks, Brown tried to characterize Husted as an unflinching Trump loyalist who supported the Iran war and initially voted against the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files.

Over the final weeks of the race, Trump mounted a vigorous defense to keep Husted in the seat, rallying with him in the state twice in nine days. Both rallies included cameos from Jon Gruden, the former NFL coach who played football with Husted at the University of Dayton.

Trump marveled about Husted's physical form and athleticism, which he said he was unaware of until he learned about it from Gruden. "You are a great athlete. I didn't know that, because he doesn't talk about that," Trump said at an Oct. 12 rally in Youngstown. "Congratulations! Now they finally know."