Former Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH), who is launching a comeback senatorial bid in his home state, accused incumbent Sen. Jon Husted (R-OH) last week of being oblivious to rising gas prices because he allegedly doesn’t drive his own car. What Brown left out, however, is his own penchant for luxury transportation services.
Over the course of his nearly two decades in the Senate, Brown’s political committees spent roughly $50,000 on chauffeured car services, limousine rentals, ride shares, and chartered air travel, a Washington Examiner review of campaign finance records has found. Many of these expenses occurred within the last couple of years.
Brown’s Senate committee, for instance, paid nearly $6,000 to Carey International, a luxury transportation service, between October 2025 and November 2025, records show.
“Allow our highly-trained chauffeurs to pick you up or drop you off at airports, train stations, cruise ports, and other transit hubs,” the company’s website reads. “Our chauffeurs are more than drivers — they’re best-in-class professionals, rigorously trained to deliver safety, discretion, and exceptional service.”
Carey International offers a range of luxury vehicles for customers to choose from and boasts high-profile clients, including the NBA, NFL, PGA, and BlackRock. Brown has spent over $30,000 at Carey International over the course of his senatorial career.
“Jon, it would do you a lot of good to maybe pump your own gas from time to time,” Brown wrote last week, responding to Husted’s claim that families are paying less under Republican leadership by attaching a screenshot of a news article reporting on increased gas prices in Ohio. “Stop embarrassing yourself.”
Brown, a Yale University graduate who has spent the vast majority of his professional career in politics, has gone to great lengths to display an affinity for blue-collar America. For one, the former senator appears in a workwear jacket in his social media profile pictures. He’s also repeatedly emphasized that unionized workers make the Jeep he drives.
Not all of Brown’s transportation needs are handled by unionized workers, however.
Brown’s campaign committees have spent roughly $5,500 on Uber and Lyft rides since 2017, records show.
Uber and Lyft have historically resisted unionization efforts.
The two companies, alongside DoorDash, Instacart, and Postmates, for instance, spent over $200 million backing Proposition 22 in California — a 2020 referendum that cemented the status of their drivers as independent contractors, thus hamstringing their ability to unionize. Only within the past year have Uber and Lyft drivers gained the ability to unionize in California, with fights ongoing in progressive Illinois and Massachusetts.
Services such as All Star Limo, Blue Limo, Dhillon Car Service, California Pacific Limousine, Executive Limo Service, and Air Charter Team — a charter flight provider based in Missouri — have all received business from Brown’s campaign committees over the years.
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Most polls show Husted ahead of Brown, but by relatively slim margins in reliably red Ohio. Democrats are hopeful that Brown’s unique appeal to rural voters will help him in November. Cook Political Report currently rates the race as “lean Republican.”
Brown and Husted did not respond to requests for comment.