Sherrod Brown 6 points behind Jon Husted in Ohio Senate race on kickoff week

Former Democratic Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown is trailing Sen. Jon Husted (R-OH) in the polls after launching his 2026 comeback Senate campaign on Monday. 

An Emerson College poll released on Friday showed Husted leads Brown 50% to 44%, indicating the former senator faces an uphill battle in reclaiming a spot in the upper chamber. 

Brown turned his gaze this week to challenging Husted in a special 2026 election after losing an Ohio Senate seat he had held since 2007 to Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-OH) last November. Husted is running to complete a full term after being appointed to the seat formerly held by Vice President JD Vance, who resigned from the position last year to take on the vice presidency. 

Spencer Kimball, executive director of Emerson College Polling, said the latest survey shows Brown faces challenges in his campaign against Husted, even though the former senator’s campaign announced on Tuesday that he raised $3.6 million after launching his bid the previous day.

“In the first public poll following Sherrod Brown’s 2026 campaign kick-off, the former Senator trails the incumbent Jon Husted by six points, though he has a higher name recognition than the first-term Senator,” said Kimball.

Brown has blamed his bruising loss during the 2024 election to Moreno partly due to rising enthusiasm for President Donald Trump in Ohio, a state that moved to the right in recent years. 

“I expected to win because I’m out a lot and I talk to workers. I talk to people year-round. I come home. I listen to people. That’s where my ideas come from. I expected to win because of that. … What I didn’t see is the ad they did at the end where Trump said voting for Sherrod Brown is voting against me. And when the leader of your ticket runs 12 points behind almost, you can’t overcome that,” he said last November.

Trump won the state by over 11 points, defeating former Vice President Kamala Harris by a decisive margin in the same election in which Brown lost his seat to Moreno by roughly 3.5 points. 

Moreno weighed in on possibilities Brown could make a comeback bid earlier this month, arguing that he should “just retire with dignity.”

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“He obviously needs to just retire. I think the guy would be like ancient if he got reelected. The guy can’t find a job. He should just retire with dignity,” Moreno said.

The Emerson College poll was conducted Aug. 18-19 among 1,000 active Ohio registered voters.  The poll’s margin of error was plus or minus 3%.