By Richard Cowan
WARREN, Ohio (Reuters) – Democratic U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown has navigated Ohio’s increasingly Republican political currents for the past two decades by appealing to the state’s blue collar voters, but the Nov. 5 election will test him as never before.
Democrats’ hopes of defending their narrow 51-49 majority in the Senate depend heavily on Brown’s success in a state that has taken a strong turn toward Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump — whose running mate, U.S. Senator JD Vance, hails from Ohio.
The state hasn’t voted for a Democratic presidential candidate since President Barack Obama carried it by two percentage points in 2012, and hasn’t elected a Democratic governor since 2007. That trend helps explain why Brown, 71, has not been joined on the campaign trail by Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris or her running mate Tim Walz.
Opinion polls show Brown locked in a tight race with Republican former luxury car dealer Bernie Moreno, 57, a closer contest than the presidential race in the state, where Trump leads by about 8 points, according to the FiveThirtyEight.com polling average.
Success for Brown, who heads the Senate Banking Committee, will hang on strong turnout in the Democratic strongholds of Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati, as well as a significant number of “ticket-splitting” voters willing for vote for both Brown and Trump. Senators serve for six-year terms, making this the first election that both Brown and Trump’s names have appeared on the same ballot.
“Brown is swimming upstream, but he’s the strongest swimmer they (Democrats) have,” said Paul Sracic, a Youngstown State University political science professor. Now, many blue-collar and service workers who grew up as Democrats in the region “are becoming more comfortable with the (Republican) Party,” Sracic said.
While polls show the race for the White House and U.S. House of Representatives as close-fought, Republicans are favored to win a Senate majority. Democrats are trying to defend seats in seven states seen as competitive, while the Republican defenders are all in less-competitive states, with Democrats pinning their hopes on Brown and Senator Jon Tester of deeply Republican Montana.
UNION MEETINGS
Brown has longstanding ties to organized labor in the state and a track record of both pushing back against corporate power and embracing some bipartisan legislation that dates back to his first election to the state legislature in 1974.
During a recent meeting with workers at the United Auto Workers union Local 1112 in Warren, Ohio, Brown focused his remarks squarely on his efforts to stop what he calls China’s illegal export of cheap vehicles through Mexico.
Asked by reporters whether such a ban could inadvertently hamstring a centerpiece of Democratic President Joe Biden’s environmental agenda: lowering carbon emissions through government incentives for consumers to buy electric vehicles. It is a policy Trump mocks regularly while running against Harris, who helped get Biden’s push for EVs passed into law in 2022.
“I don’t tell anyone what to drive. I drive an internal combustion engine,” Brown said, mindful of the economic pain the area endured in 2019 when General Motors closed its assembly plant in nearby Lordstown, at a cost of about 4,300 jobs.
He then explained that he simply wants to ensure that cars and trucks on American roads are built in America by union labor, however they are powered.
Trump’s popularity with working-class voters has led some unions to soften their historically strong support of Democrats, most notably the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, which opted not to endorse a candidate in this year’s presidential election after a poll of its members found that a clear majority supported Trump.
The Ohio Teamsters have endorsed Brown this year.
Those tensions were on display before Brown’s meeting with the United Auto Workers members. George Goranitis, the local’s newly-elected president eagerly backed Brown, but when asked in an interview about Harris — who the national UAW has endorsed — Goranitis paused.
Pressed on the issue, Goranitis would not utter an endorsement, saying that he is the face of the local union where sentiments are mixed over the presidential race.
“Ohio has now become a red state. Trumbull County has become a red (county),” Goranitis said. “But you know you have your Harris and Walz supporters and Sherrod Brown supporters and you also have your Trump and JD Vance and Moreno supporters.”
BIG MONEY
While big-name national Democrats have not been flying in to campaign with Brown, they have been pumping money into his campaign, as have Republicans for Moreno.
The contest is shaping up to be one of the most expensive Senate races ever. As of Sept. 30, Brown has outraised Moreno $81 million to $22 million, but Moreno allies have made up the difference with outside spending, where they have pumped in about $160 million to Brown backers’ roughly $86 million, according to Open Secrets.
The Moreno campaign did not respond to requests for comment. On social media he highlights Trump priorities, such as immigration.
“Springfield is overrun with migrants,” Moreno posted on X, citing the Ohio city that Trump and his supporters thrust into the limelight this summer by spreading false claims that some Haitian immigrants in the city were eating other people’s pets.
While many Democrats loudly criticized Trump and Vance for promoting these claims, Brown has largely sidestepped the issue.
Asked by Reuters about the controversy, Brown pivoted, saying that Congress had a chance to pass a bipartisan immigration and border security bill earlier this year that Trump played a critical role in killing.
“There are people who want to gain politically on the border issues,” Brown said. “I just want to get it done. Should have passed at beginning of the year.”
(Reporting by Richard Cowan; Editing by Scott Malone and Alistair Bell)
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