Comeback kid or ‘political cicada’? Sherrod Brown tries to find his way back to the Senate

By Manu Raju, Alison Main, CNN

(CNN) — Sherrod Brown stood in front of dozens of supporters at a suburban watering hole, talking glowingly about his final day in the US Senate in 2024.

Then he caught himself.

“Well, I thought it was my last night,” said Brown, eliciting applause in the room. “There are going to be more nights now.”

The former three-term senator from Ohio is mounting a comeback bid that’s critical to national Democrats’ hopes of winning the Senate this fall. He’s trying to become the first person since 1988 to win a Senate seat after losing reelection in the prior election cycle, in a state that was once one of America’s premier battlegrounds but has shifted markedly to the right.

Brown is running the same type of progressive populist campaign that helped him hold public office for half a century, railing on corporations and a “rigged” system – something he believes carries particular resonance at a time of high gas prices and economic malaise. While President Donald Trump won Ohio in 2024 by 11 points, now-Sen. Bernie Moreno beat Brown by less than 4.

In an interview with CNN in Delaware County, a suburban battleground that leans Republican, Brown defended his decision to run again at the age of 73 after serving 32 years in the House and Senate.

“People want somebody that will fight back,” Brown told CNN. “They want somebody to call to stand up to Wall Street and the big banks and the utility companies and the drug companies, and they know I’ll do that.”

He faces Sen. Jon Husted, the former Ohio lieutenant governor appointed to the Senate when JD Vance became vice president. Republicans are already planning to run the same playbook that helped Moreno defeat Brown, attacking the Democrat as out-of-step on issues ranging from immigration to transgender rights.

“Sherrod Brown is the absolute perfect political cicada,” Moreno said in an interview. “This is a guy who comes out of the ground and pretends he’s this moderate, working-class American, and then comes here to Washington, DC, and he’s a hardcore liberal.”

‘I’m not doing punditry’

Brown’s fate is now central to the Democrats’ path to net four seats and flip the Senate, a fact underscored by the massive influx of outside cash poised to flood the airwaves, including roughly $80 million from a leading GOP super PAC, dwarfing the $40 million pledged so far by its Democratic counterpart.

It was Brown himself, in the aftermath of the 2024 election, who criticized his party for falling out of touch with blue-collar and working-class voters. After his defeat, Brown wrote an opinion piece for The New Republic saying that in “large swaths of Ohio, and the country, the Democratic Party’s reputation has become toxic.”

In his interview with CNN, Brown seemed leery about reengaging in that discussion. Asked if the party’s brand was still toxic, Brown said: “You’re the pundit. I’m not.”

Pressed again about his own words, Brown said: “You quoted it a year later. No, I mean, people recognize I’m an Ohio Democrat and the national brand, maybe it is (toxic), but I’m an Ohio Democrat. They know I fight for workers.”

Yet, on some key issues where many in his party have shifted to the left, Brown adopted a more cautious line – like on abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement or whether to stop arms sales to Israel.

Asked if he supported either of those positions, Brown said: “I don’t – I’m not paying enough attention to know what votes are coming up.”

Asked again if he supported abolishing ICE, Brown said: “I don’t – I’m not close enough to make those decisions. I think for sure we need rules around ICE,” calling instead for body cameras and the removal of their masks.

When Brown left Washington at the end of 2024, he was at the pinnacle of his power as chairman of the Senate Banking Committee. If he wins, there’s no guarantee he’d retain his seniority, meaning he could start off as a freshman at the age of 74 and sit at the end of the dais.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer urged Brown to run again.

Asked if Schumer had promised him his old chairmanship or to retain his seniority if he returns to the Senate, Brown said there were “no promises.” Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts is the current ranking member on the Banking Committee, putting her in line to become chair if Democrats retake the Senate.

And asked if he’d back Schumer to be the next Democratic leader, Brown dodged the question.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I’m not doing punditry.”

A fight over Jeffrey Epstein and Les Wexner

Despite being the incumbent, Husted is less well-known than the challenger Brown. So as Husted seeks to introduce himself in his ads with details of his humble upbringing, Brown opened the general election seeking to tie the GOP senator to the Jeffrey Epstein scandal.

Brown’s first ads, which started running on Ohio TV stations at the start of the month, highlight donations that Husted has received throughout his political career from Ohio-based billionaire Les Wexner, who was Epstein’s primary financial benefactor, though not implicated in any of Epstein’s sex crimes.

Brown is attacking Husted for voting to block the release of the files last fall when Schumer forced a vote on the issue, accusing his opponent of protecting Wexner. But two months later, the full Senate voted to release the files with the support of Husted, and the GOP senator has since donated “all available funds” to an anti-human trafficking charity, according to his campaign.

“When it was debated and there were arguments on both sides, he voted to keep … the files closed only weeks after he had gotten a maximum contribution from that, from that co-conspirator,” Brown said in defending his line of attack.

Husted fired back.

“He well knows that I voted to release the Epstein files,” Husted told CNN when asked about Brown’s attack. “That’s why we have all the information. The problem is he was such a failure for 32 years. He has nothing to talk about.”

Husted’s political allies point to donations made to Brown’s campaigns by Wexner’s wife, Abigail, as well as former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, who withdrew from public life after details of his longtime personal relationship with the late convicted sex trafficker were revealed.

But Brown told CNN he would not return those donations, contending the situation was markedly different because of the breadth of contributions Wexner contributed over the years to Husted and his reported entanglement in the federal sex trafficking probe into Epstein.

“It’s not real reporting to make those comparisons,” he said.

Asked on Capitol Hill about his relationship with Wexner, Husted ignored the question as he walked onto an elevator. (Husted’s campaign said he was unavailable for an interview, though CNN caught up with him on Capitol Hill.)

In a statement, his campaign did not explain Husted’s relationship with his former donor, but attacked Brown and said his ads were “hypocritical” and “raise more important questions.”

Husted spokesperson Amy Natoce attacked Brown for not donating funds from Summers and Wexner’s wife to charity.

“And why did he sit on the Epstein files for years? He owes Ohioans answers,” Natoce said.

Rising costs and Trump

Yet, above all else, the issues of affordability continue to animate voters here more than anything else, especially as Ohio drivers pay around $2 more per gallon for gas than they did before the Iran war began in late February.

Lou Boyle, a local business owner who identifies as a conservative, told CNN that affordability is one of his top concerns. Though he says he has previously voted for Brown, he’s not sure who he’ll choose this time.

“We’re obviously seeing a rise in a lot of different costs, meaning that can be associated to a lot of what’s happening overseas,” Boyle said. “But my first and foremost is whoever’s going to be the most pragmatic about what is here in the states.”

Other voters aren’t sold yet, either.

Scott Greene, a voter who has not supported Brown in the past, isn’t convinced that it’s time to back him now.

“I’m not enamored with both of the candidates,” Greene said. “I’m not sure that Sherrod Brown has really explained his platform.”

Pressed on whether the war in Iran is worth the higher prices at the pump, Husted said: “I don’t want my constituents to pay higher prices for anything,” touting Trump’s tax policies passed by Republicans along party lines last summer.

“There’s no doubt that gas prices are too high right now, and we need to take action to make sure that we are trying to make life more affordable,” Husted later added.

Still, asked if he approved of the president’s handling of the economy, Husted pivoted from Trump, who is facing career-low approval ratings on the issue, to an attack on Brown and trade.

“I’m not going to talk about what the president’s ratings are in polls or things like that,” Husted said.

But Moreno said the GOP playbook should be to fully embrace Trump in a state that the president carried by 11 points in 2024, the highest margin of his three victories there.

Asked if Husted should align himself with Trump, Moreno said: “Well, of course, he’s aligned with President Trump, as am I.”

The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.

CNN’s Jordan Budney, Julian Silva-Forbes, Morgan Leason, Karenia Murry and Kendall Wright contributed to this report.