Democratic senator Sherrod Brown and Republican senator Jon Husted won their party’s nominations in Ohio’s primary elections on Tuesday, according to the Associated Press – teeing them up for what is expected to be a high-profile and expensive Senate race in November’s midterm elections.
Husted ran unopposed, while Brown had a single opponent whom he handily outraised.
The veteran politicians are standing in a special election to be decided in the 3 November midterms that will determine who serves the remainder of the six-year term JD Vance won in 2022, before becoming vice-president last year.
Husted was appointed by Mike DeWine, Ohio’s Republican governor, to take over for Vance, while Brown, a former three-term senator, is seeking to make a comeback after losing his re-election bid in 2024.
Ohio’s Senate seat is one of four that Chuck Schumer, the Senate’s Democratic minority leader, has prioritized in the party’s bid to retake control of the chamber, which appeared to be a long shot after Donald Trump won election two years ago, but seems increasingly attainable as the president’s approval ratings slump.
The main Senate Republican Super Pac has announced plans to spend $79m in Ohio, and Democratic-aligned groups are expected to do the same.
Elsewhere, Republicans in north-west Ohio selected Derek Merrin as their candidate to take on Democrat Marcy Kaptur, the longest-serving female member of the House of Representatives whose district, centered on Toledo, became more conservative under new maps that a state redistricting commission approved last year.
Kaptur is considered one of the most vulnerable Democrats in the country. The contest for her district attracted five Republicans, including former statehouse representative Merrin, who lost to Kaptur in 2024 by fewer than 2,400 votes; Madison Sheahan, a former deputy director of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement; and Josh Williams, a statehouse representative.
In the gubernatorial primary to succeed DeWine, who is term-limited, the biotech entrepreneur and former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy was the choice of Republicans, and former state health department director Amy Acton won the Democratic nomination. The other major Republican candidate was Casey Putsch, an internet personality and auto racing engineer.
Once a swing state that decided the 2004 presidential election for Republican George W Bush before Barack Obama won it in his two presidential victories, Ohio backed Trump all three times he was on the ballot and by increasingly wide margins.
But Democrats are hoping that his administration’s unpopularity will turn out voters and help them expand their seats in a congressional delegation currently consisting of five Democrats and 10 Republicans.
They also are banking that Ramaswamy will struggle to rally Republicans, which could boost Acton’s chances of becoming the first Democrat to serve as governor since 2011, along with those of Brown and other Democrats on the ballot.
