Sherrod Brown Defeats Jon Husted in Ohio Senate Race, AP Says

Democrat Sherrod Brown defeated Republican Sen. Jon Husted in Ohio's 2026 U.S. Senate race, according to an Associated Press race call. The AP call is its projection that a candidate has won. NPR reported the result.

Brown is a former senator who served three terms before losing his seat to Republican Bernie Moreno in 2024. Husted was appointed to the Senate in 2025 by Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, filling the seat that J.D. Vance left after he won the vice presidency. Before that, Husted served as speaker of the Ohio House, as Ohio secretary of state and as lieutenant governor.

The race was for the final two years of a six-year term. Husted was uncontested in the Republican primary for the special election.

With an estimated 87% of the vote counted, Brown had 2,011,198 votes, or 48.6%. Husted had 1,921,992 votes, or 46.5%, according to GV Wire.

Brown is the seventh former U.S. senator since 1946 to lose a seat and later return to the Senate, according to NPR.

Before the vote, Donald Trump planned to travel to Vandalia, Ohio, to campaign for Husted, according to The Associated Press.

The race was costly. Brown and Husted together raised more than $80 million, and candidates and outside groups had spent more than $422 million on the race as of mid-October, NPR reported.