This, from The New Republic article’s sub-headline: “Reconnecting the Democratic Party to the working class is an electoral and a moral imperative, and it will be my mission for the rest of my life.”
That doesn’t sound like sipping iced tea in the rocking chair of a retirement home’s sun porch. It sounds instead like “reconnecting” with Ohio voters in a statewide 2026 campaign for a return to the Senate (by unseating appointed Republican Sen. Jon Husted of Upper Arlington) — or (likelier) running for governor of Ohio next year against whomever the GOP slates for that job.
If a Brown governorship campaign were to emerge, that would create a vexing dilemma for Ohio’s Democratic organization, loyal to long-term officeholder Brown though it may be. There’s an Ohio Democrat already running energetically for the party’s 2026 gubernatorial nomination: Bexley Democrat Amy Acton, M.D., a Youngstown native, who — amid the COVID pandemic — bravely and energetically served as director of Ohio’s state Health Department in (Republican) Gov. Mike DeWine’s administration.
It would be interesting to see if, or how, Brown’s in-party fans might attempt to slide fellow Democrat Acton — a highly qualified female candidate — out of her quest for the governorship.
Republicans who’ve announced they’re seeking for GOP’s 2026 gubernatorial nomination are Ohio Attorney General David Yost, of Columbus; Upper Arlington tech zillionaire Vivek Ramaswamy; and Heather Brazell-Hill, of Morgan County’s Malta.
Besides Acton, other Ohio Democrats who’ve announced they’re seeking statewide executive office nominations in 2026 are another physician, Bryan Hambley, M.D., of suburban Cincinnati’s Loveland, who’s running for Democrats’ nomination for secretary of state; and ex-state Rep. Elliot Forhan, now of Greater Cleveland’s Brooklyn Heights, a Yale Law School, graduate who’s running for Democrats’ 2026 nomination for Ohio attorney general.
Democrats, no matter how qualified, face this historic challenge: For many years, this was the classic definition of Ohio politics, formulated in 1960 by the late Thomas Flinn, a scholar then at Oberlin, later at Cleveland State:
“Ohio is now and has long been a competitive two-party state in which the Republicans enjoy the advantage. From the close of the Civil War to the election of 1896 the Republicans carried the state in every presidential contest (seven), but the outcome of these elections in Ohio was invariably close.”
Not now, though: Due to statewide GOP successes and Ohio Democrats’ weaknesses. Ohio cast its presidential electoral votes in 2016, 2020 and 2024 for Donald Trump and his running mates – last year, for now-Vice President J.D. Vance, of Butler County’s Middletown, quite likely, our next president.
Republicans have run Ohio’s Senate since January 1985 –40 years, almost certainly an Ohio record – and run Ohio’s House for all except two years since January 1995 (28 years).
Republicans hold both Ohio U.S. Senate seats, with Moreno and Husted. Democrats now hold only one statewide elected office – the Ohio Supreme Court seat held by Justice Jennifer Brunner.
All that leaves Ohio Democrats out in the cold unless they field an appealing, potentially victorious 2026 statewide ticket – without alienating any of the party’s key constituencies, which happen to include Democratic women backing Dr. Amy Acton to be Ohio’s next governor.
Thomas Suddes is a former legislative reporter with The Plain Dealer in Cleveland and writes from Ohio University. You can reach him at tsuddes@gmail.com.
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