Sherrod Brown Tipping His Hand?

Former Senator hints at pitch for potential 2026 return

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Former Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown (D), who was ousted from office on Nov. 5, is trying to chart a new path forward for the Democratic Party.

On Monday, Brown published a 4,000+ word essay titled "Democrats Must Become the Workers' Party Again" in the New Republic magazine. The piece, which argues that Dems need to return to their roots, also may signal Mr. Brown's willingness to make an electoral comeback attempt in either the 2026 Ohio Senate or Governor's race.

In the article, Mr. Brown says, "Democrats must reckon with how far our party has strayed from our New Deal roots ... How we see ourselves as the Democratic Party – the party of the people, the party of the working class and the middle class – no longer matches up with what most voters think."

The former Senator further explains the Democratic Party's problem with workers goes back decades:

"This isn't a two-year or a four-year problem. It goes back at least to the North American Free Trade Agreement.

People ... expected Republicans to sell them out to multinational corporations. But we were supposed to be the party that looked out for these workers – to be on their side, to stand up to corporate interests.

And as a national party, we failed."

As reflected in the title of his essay, one of Mr. Brown's situational remedies is that Democrats need to become the workers' party again. "To become the workers' party," he writes, "we need to better understand workers and their lives, and we need to have ordinary workers more actively involved in the party and its decisions."

While it may offer some political appeal, this theme has landed on deaf ears throughout the very areas of Ohio that his message targets. In the 2024 Senate race, which he lost to new Senator Bernie Moreno (R) 50.1 – 46.5%, the incumbent Democrat could only manage to carry eight of the state's 88 counties. 

Seven of those eight domains – all in Ohio's metropolitan counties and containing the cities of Akron, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton and Toledo - also voted for Kamala Harris. In fact, the only rural, coal-country county that both Harris and Brown carried was Athens County, found along the West Virginia border. 

The lone county that Mr. Brown won where Ms. Harris lost was Lorain County, a western suburban Cleveland entity that he represented during his seven-term tenure in the US House. All of Ohio's other 80 counties voted for both Messrs. Trump and Moreno.

In Ohio's 2026 political situation, Gov. Mike DeWine (R) is term-limited, meaning an open Governor's race. The GOP nominee will likely be either businessman and former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, who already carries an endorsement from President Trump, or two-term Attorney General Dave Yost. 

In the Senate, appointed incumbent Jon Husted (R), the state's former two-term Lt. Governor and previous two-term Secretary of State, will be defending his seat on the ballot for the first time.

Therefore, if Sen. Brown is planning to make a run for either office, this article may be laying the groundwork as to how he will deliver his pitch during the 2026 campaign to an electorate that just rejected him.  

His long record of winning, however, through campaigns for the Ohio House of Representatives, Secretary of State, US House and US Senate, and losing only one time since originally being elected in 1974, suggests he will obviously be a formidable candidate, able to develop a unique message should he decide to run for either of the statewide offices.

It will be interesting to see what Mr. Brown decides since he is clearly the strongest potential candidate in the Ohio Democratic stable despite his 2024 loss. The Governor's race might make the most sense for a political comeback, instead of attempting to regain a seat that he lost. 

To begin, the Governor's race is open, and the term will be four years. The Senate race would be against an appointed, but well-known, incumbent and decided upon federal issues that clearly cut against the Democrats in the last election.  

Additionally, even if Brown were to defeat Sen. Husted in the 2026 special election, he would then have to immediately turn around and face another campaign in the 2028 election cycle for the full six-year term.

The Ohio situation is worth monitoring because as Sen. Brown explains in his article, change must happen if the Democratic Party is to quickly rebound from their 2024 losses.

Jim Ellis is a 35-year veteran of politics at the state and national levels. He has served ss executive director for two national political action committees, as well as a consultant to the three national Republican Party organizations in DC, the National Federation of Independent Business, and various national conservative groups.

Born and raised in Sacramento, California, he earned a B. A. in Political Science from the University of California at Davis in 1979. Jim raised his daughter, Jacqueline, alone after his wife died following a tragic car accident. He helped establish the Joan Ellis Victims Assistance Network in Rochester, NH. Jim also is a member of the Northern Virginia Football Officials Association, which officiates high school games throughout the region.

Editor's note:

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