Opponents of authoritarianism will need to battle for every seat in 2026 to dislodge MAGA majorities. Fortunately, the cause of democracy got a boost this week when former Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown decided to launch a comeback bid after his narrow defeat in 2024. His victory over a MAGA incumbent would bring Democrats one step closer to eliminating the MAGA Senate majority.
Just as Roy Cooper was Democrats’ dream candidate for the North Carolina seat, “Brown was a top recruit for Senate Democratic leaders in their uphill battle to reclaim the majority in the upper chamber in 2026,” Politico reports. “He was first elected to the U.S. Senate in 2006 and survived two hard-fought reelection campaigns, even as Ohio’s status as a Republican state only crystallized. In 2018, he bested Republican Jim Renacci by a nearly 7-point margin, even though President Donald Trump won the state two years prior.”
He lost in a Republican wave in 2024 by a miniscule margin (MAGA Republican Bernie Moreno won 50 percent, Brown won 46.5) in a state Donald Trump won by over 11 points. Trump won’t be on the ballot in 2026, and many Republicans fear that his dismal approval ratings (below 40% in many polls) will drag down other Republicans, who are already burdened by having ditched their spines to defend Trump’s big, ugly bill.
Brown will start his race with near-national respect and name recognition against JD Vance’s sorry replacement, Sen. Jon Husted (R-Ohio), who did not win the seat and has never run for federal office. Husted has been a devout rubber-stamp for Trump, hence will be compelled to continue defending the president’s hugely unpopular policies.
As veteran journalist Ray Marcano wrote in The Columbus Dispatch: “Brown’s authentic, everyman persona has always been centered on common sense. He’s widely viewed as a populist with a mix of moderate and liberal views, and that's what the party needs.”
Throughout his career, Brown has championed blue-collar workers, supported unions, expanded access to healthcare, and bolstered Social Security—all in support of what he calls “the dignity of work.” Workers can no longer be deprived of a fair portion of the wealth they create. Given that their productivity helps make billionaires, they must enjoy their own economic security.
After his 2024 defeat, Brown founded the Dignity of Work Institute, which focuses on winning back the trust of blue collar workers; voters critical to Democratic victories. In a March article for The New Republic, Brown urged Democrats to go back to their working-class roots. “It is an electoral and a moral imperative, and it will be my mission for the rest of my life” he wrote. “To win the White House and governing majorities again, Democrats must reckon with how far our party has strayed from our New Deal roots, in terms of both our philosophy toward the economy, and the makeup of our coalition.”
In practice, that means Democrats must stop defending the status quo and instead commit to shaking up a system that no longer works for tens of millions of Americans. He noted, “Over the past 40 years, corporate profits have soared, executive salaries have exploded, and productivity keeps going up. Yet wages are largely flat, and the cost of living keeps getting more expensive.” (He wrote that before passage of the big, ugly bill, which has resulted in the largest transfer of wealth from poor to rich Americans in modern times.)
Brown rejects the notion that unrestrained capitalism plus “enough redistribution in taxes to make up for all the inequality it created” was ever going to pay off. At least not for working people. He wants the party to advance a vision that takes on “corporate special interests’ stranglehold over the country, a stranglehold that makes it impossible for people’s hard work to pay off.” One place to start, he argued, is restoring and expanding overtime pay, which courts and GOP administrations have systematically curtailed.
Certainly, Democrats such as Brown can advance a robust pro-worker agenda: Reverse SNAP and Medicaid cuts, expand the Child Tax Credit, return the collective bargaining rights that Trump stripped away from government workers, increase taxes on big corporations and the super-rich (adding a wealth tax and expanding the estate tax, which Republicans virtually eliminated), and fund green energy (thereby reviving and expanding jobs for workers without college degrees). This version of the “affordability” agenda can include maintaining subsidies for Affordable Care Act medical coverage and cancelling the consumer taxes (tariffs) that push up the cost of living.
Moreover, pro-worker Democrats can no longer tolerate the gross corruption that permeates all branches of government. Workers will cheer politicians who vow to attack Trump’s grotesque self-enrichment, beef up white collar crime enforcement, go after tech company monopolies, eliminate lawmakers’ individual stock trading, and impose an ethics code on the Supreme Court. Congress must also impose disclosure and recusal rules and stop special interests with businesses that shower justices with extravagant gifts, including fancy vacations. Finally, Democrats must attack the entire dark money system whereby rich donors entice lawmakers to deregulate industry, pass tax cuts for billionaires, gut the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and hand out goodies to Big Oil and Big Pharma.
In addition to policies that promote ordinary Americans’ economic security and root out corruption, Brown has and would also lean into abortion rights. Even in a red state, Ohioans overwhelmingly voted in 2023 to support abortion rights. Defying voters’ will (as they do), MAGA nevertheless forced birth extremists in the state legislature to criminalize all abortions.)
Most pundits and Democrats assume that MAGA Republicans’ Senate majority is safe. But perhaps conventional wisdom is wrong (again). With Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) in the polling dumps, the ideal Democratic candidate running to fill the North Carolina seat, and, now, Brown posed to take out a Trump lackey, at least three seats are gettable. The 4th seat (for an outright majority) might come from a pickup in a red Oklahoma, Texas or Iowa.
In any case, Democrats should be thrilled that Brown—an undaunted, unafraid, and unapologetic fighter for working people—will be running in Ohio as a proven advocate against MAGA greed and corruption. They should celebrate his return and embrace his agenda as we prepare for the nearing battle.
Love Sherrod Brown “And his lovely wife too” (the amazing Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, Connie Schultz). He would be an amazing choice for Senator again or President!
It speaks to the insanity of Ohio voters that a great public servant like Sherrod Brown could have been booted out of office. It would be fitting if he won back a seat, reclaimed his old desk (that he wrote a book about because of its long history serving other great Senators) and helped the Democrats retake the Senate. Democrats, like Gov. Gavin Newsome of California, have got to make sure the Republicans can't steal the mid-terms. Because if that doesn't happen, Democrats will take back the House. And contrary to certain gloom-and-doom pundits, the Senate is in play. Trump has committed numerous impeachable offenses already. If the Dems retake the House, they can go for round 3 of impeachment with the crooked bastard, and a Senate majority, combined with some previously weak-kneed Republican senators emboldended by Trump's weakened state, might just get him out of office. There would be worldwide dancing in the streets if that happens. I'm not worried by that dolt Vance replacing Trump. The Democratic Congress could neuter the creep until 2028, when Democrats could reclaim the White House and start the difficult task of rebuilding our once-great country.