Ohio Becomes the Senate Race Nobody Saw Coming: Brown Leads Husted as $79 Million in GOP Money Floods In
Two days before the midterms, the reddest state to flip a Senate seat this cycle has turned into a dead heat — and Republicans are spending accordingly.
Ohio was not supposed to be close. Donald Trump carried the state by double digits in 2024, and when Vice President JD Vance vacated his Senate seat, Gov. Mike DeWine handed the appointment to a sitting Republican, Lt. Gov. Jon Husted. Two days before Tuesday's special election to fill the remainder of that term, Husted is running even or behind in nearly every independent poll against the Democrat he's trying to keep out of Washington: 63-year-old former Sen. Sherrod Brown.
A polling average compiled by PollCheck and updated October 27 has Brown ahead 48.3% to 44.8%. Individual surveys show an even wider gap: a Fox News poll has Brown up 53-45, a margin the network says has held steady since June, and Marist's late-September poll put him ahead 51-43. A Suffolk University poll sponsored by USA Today was the tightest of the bunch, 47-44 in Brown's favor. Not a single public poll in the campaign's final weeks has shown Husted leading.
The GOP Writes a Check
National Republicans aren't taking the chance. The Senate Leadership Fund, the party's main Senate-focused super PAC, has committed $79 million to Husted's race — its single largest spending commitment anywhere in the country this cycle, according to tracking of the race's financial disclosures. The sum reflects just how unexpectedly expensive a state Trump won by eleven points has become to defend.
NOT A SINGLE PUBLIC POLL IN THE FINAL WEEKS HAS SHOWN HUSTED AHEAD.
Brown, who represented Ohio in the Senate for three terms before losing his 2024 re-election bid to Bernie Moreno, has leaned into his old blue-collar, populist brand, hammering Husted on the cost of groceries, gas and healthcare. Husted's campaign has countered by tying Brown to the national Democratic brand and arguing Ohio voters already retired him once. Trump has made multiple visits to the state in the race's closing days to try to close the gap.
The special election fills the remainder of Vance's term, meaning the winner would need to run again in 2028 to hold the seat for a full six years — but for now, both parties are treating Tuesday's result as a bellwether for whether Ohio's rightward drift under Trump actually survives a midterm without him on the ballot.
Polls close across Ohio at 7:30 p.m. local time Tuesday. With early and absentee voting already underway nationwide, the result could hinge on how many of Ohio's famously decisive suburban counties — Franklin, Hamilton, Delaware — break from their recent Republican lean.