Veteran politicians Sherrod Brown, Jon Husted compete for Ohio Senate seat once held by Vance

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — The Ohio seat formerly held by Vice President JD Vance is up for grabs on Tuesday as Republican Sen. Jon Husted tries to ward off a stiff challenge from Democrat Sherrod Brown in one of the most hard-fought and costly Senate races in the country.

The winner will serve the final two years of the six-year Senate term Vance won in 2022. Husted, the former lieutenant governor, has held the seat since his appointment in January 2025.

Brown, 73, was ousted from the Senate two years ago by Republican Sen. Bernie Moreno in a bitter campaign. Despite the loss, Brown's status as one of Ohio's most successful politicians — and the only nonjudicial Democrat to win a statewide race in 18 years — prompted the party to rally around him for a comeback bid .

The political landscape is much different this year. Although Ohio has faded as a national bellwether because of its recent rightward lurch, Democrats see the state as crucial to winning Senate control. There's widespread dissatisfaction with rising prices and the Iran war, and President Donald Trump's low popularity complicates his ability to promote candidates like Husted.

Still, Trump and Vance repeatedly visited the state to campaign for him, even pressing a positive message on artificial intelligence data centers that was aimed at reversing one of Husted's key vulnerabilities .

Ohio's third U.S. Senate race in as many election cycles features no political newcomer, unlike when Moreno and Vance won their seats. Both of this year's candidates have long records in public office.

The campaign has been among the most expensive in the country. Brown and allied groups have hammered Husted, 59, over his role as Republican Gov. Mike DeWine's point person in attracting data centers to the state and actions he took to help pass a nuclear plant bailout at the heart of a long-running $60 million bribery investigation . Husted also received campaign donations from retail magnate Les Wexner, a billionaire who employed the late sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein to manage his fortune .

Husted has never been accused of any crime associated with the bribery scandal. He also said he donated all available Wexner donations to an anti-sex trafficking charity.

Husted and supportive interest groups attacked Brown for positions he took over his 32 years as a congressman and senator and portrayed him as part of the Democratic Party's far-left flank . Viewed as one of the Senate's most liberal members when he served, Brown considers himself an old-fashioned populist, long embracing pro-union, pro-working class positions such as federal pension guarantees, “Buy American” budget provisions and other policies that foster what he promotes as "the dignity of work.”

To highlight Brown's many years in Washington, Husted ran one ad noting that he was a 7-year-old playing pee wee football when Brown first went to Congress. Another cited Brown's vote in favor of the bank bailout of 2008, nearly two decades ago, to paint him as beholden to Wall Street.

Meanwhile, Husted promoted himself to voters as a fiscal conservative who favors income tax cuts and cutting regulatory red tape. He accused Brown and Democrats of being for “crazy stuff.”

The campaign cast Brown's opposition to a federal ban on certain kinds of healthcare for transgender people as support for “sex change surgery for minors” and “irreversible surgery on kids.” Brown's stance is that those decisions should be made by patients and their families rather than the government.