Ohio · Senate
election 2026-11-03 · forecast as of 2026-10-01 · margins and probabilities are for Sherrod Brown
Who is running?
Sherrod Brown (Democratic), Jon Husted (Republican). The margin below is Sherrod Brown minus the other candidate in the main contest; the rest are on the ballot and not in it.
The race, in brief
This is a special election on November 3, 2026, to complete the Senate term JD Vance won in 2022 before resigning in 2025 to become vice president; the seat is up again for a full term in 2028. The text calls Ohio a moderate to strong red state: Trump won it by 8 percentage points in 2016 and 2020 and by 11 in 2024. The state profile on file records a college share of 0.3 and a median age of 39.6.
The Republican is Jon Husted, lieutenant governor from 2019 to 2025, appointed to the seat by Governor Mike DeWine; he was unopposed in the primary. The Democrat is Sherrod Brown, senator from 2007 to 2025, who lost in 2024 to Bernie Moreno by slightly over 3.5 points and won this primary with 89.4% over Ron Kincaid. Libertarian Bill Redpath and independent Greg Levy are also standing. As of June 30, 2026 Brown had raised $38,566,234 with $16,229,741 on hand; Husted $14,360,028 with $9,419,311. Data centers are named as a major issue.
Seven raters list the race as Tossup (CBS News, Cook, Decision Desk HQ, Fox News, Inside Elections, RealClearPolitics, Sabato's Crystal Ball); The Economist, FiftyPlusOne, Silver Bulletin and Split Ticket list it as a flip. Polling averages dated September 29, 2026 run from Brown +3.8% to Brown +5.1%, averaging Brown 48.2%, Husted 43.7%. Late polls include Marist (Brown 51%, Husted 43%) and Suffolk (Brown 47%, Husted 44%).
A paragraph quoting a model forecast from the day this brief was written is omitted; the current forecast is at the top of this page.
The facts, each beside its sentence
Republican former Lieutenant Governor and current appointee Jon Husted and Democratic former U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown are the respective nominees for their parties.
Seeking to keep the seat after his appointment, Husted ran unopposed for the Republican nomination.
Sherrod Brown, former U.S. senator (2007–2025)
Jon Husted, incumbent U.S. senator (2025–present)
Brown, who represented Ohio in the Senate for three terms until his defeat in 2024, won the Democratic nomination against minimal opposition.
Governor Mike DeWine chose then-Lieutenant Governor Jon Husted to replace Vance in the Senate.
Republican nominee Donald Trump won Ohio in 2016 and 2020 by 8 percentage points, and in 2024 grew his margin to 11 percentage points.
Republican JD Vance, now the vice president of the United States, defeated Democrat Tim Ryan in the 2022 U.S. Senate election by slightly over 6 points
candidate: Sherrod Brown votes: 712,106 percentage: 89.4
The Economist flip September 26, 2026 FiftyPlusOne flip September 26, 2026
|Jon Husted (R) $14,360,028 $4,940,716 $9,419,311 |Sherrod Brown (D) $38,566,234 $22,336,493 $16,229,741
The winner will complete the term won in 2022 by JD Vance, who resigned in 2025 to become vice president.
Average 43.7% |48.2% 8.1% |Brown +4.5%
Marist University September 24–27, 2026 1,298 (RV) ± 3.8% 43% |51%
Data centers have become a major issue in the campaign, and a poll showed 71% of Ohioans support a temporary ban on new construction of data centers.
found that 25% of likely Ohio voters incorrectly believed Sherrod Brown was the current U.S. Senator for the state
A member of the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL), he filed with the Federal Election Commission as an independent candidate.
Not in the source: The facts list Husted with incumbent: false, but the text describes him as the appointed incumbent senator.; The forecast rows carry no `basis`, so it cannot be told whether the model uses the statewide polls listed here.; The 'flip' ratings do not say which party they flip the seat to.; No endorsements are listed under the Endorsements headings.; The Big Data Poll row lists two pairs of numbers without labels, so it is not reported.
Read from the district's section of Wikipedia's state page (CC BY-SA), archived as e489126f7d50; written by claude-fable-5-1 (batch reader) on 2026-09-30 and checked mechanically: every quote occurs verbatim in the archived text, every number in the brief occurs in the inputs. No probability here is the reader's.
Who holds the seat now
Bernie Moreno (Republican), in this chamber since 2025, 1 term, class 1 (term ends 2031). Committees: Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs; Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation; Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs; Senate Committee on the Budget; United States Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control.
Jon Husted (Republican), in this chamber since 2025, 1 term, class 3 (term ends 2026). Committees: Senate Committee on Appropriations; Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works; Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions; Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship; Senate Special Committee on Aging.
From the congress-legislators dataset (CC0), archived as ae8cb9477c48. For a Senate race this lists both of the state's senators; the one whose term ends in the election year holds the seat on the ballot. For a House district redrawn for 2026 it is the member elected under the old lines with this number, who may be running elsewhere; the dossier above names who is running here.
The money
| Candidate | Raised | Cash on hand | PAC share | Self-funded | Outside $ for | Outside $ against |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brown, Sherrod (DEM) challenger | $38,566,234 | $16,229,741 | 2% | 0% | $49,811 | $3,863,834 |
| Husted, Jon (REP) incumbent | $14,360,028 | $9,419,311 | 16% | 0% | $4,611,279 | $30,097 |
| Ode, Frederick J (DEM) challenger · not on our roster | $5,001,939 | $25,866 | 0% | 0% | $0 | $0 |
| Levy, Gregory Lee (IND) challenger · not on our roster | $80,348 | $25,971 | 0% | 0% | $0 | $0 |
| Kincaid, Ronald E Jr (DEM) challenger · not on our roster | $46,619 | $17,487 | 0% | 21% | $0 | $0 |
| Redpath, William (LIB) challenger · not on our roster | $24,200 | $730 | 0% | 52% | $0 | $0 |
| Volpe, Christopher (DEM) challenger · not on our roster | $4,337 | $168 | 0% | 3% | $0 | $0 |
| Volpe, Christopher (DEM) challenger · not on our roster | $4,337 | $168 | 0% | 3% | $0 | $0 |
| Faris, Stephen I Mr (IND) challenger · not on our roster | $2,082 | $156 | 0% | 100% | $0 | $0 |
FEC bulk candidate summaries through June 30, 2026; $8,555,021 of independent expenditures for or against these candidates this cycle (FEC Schedule E, types 24E and 24A), which is the parties' and outside groups' own revealed view of whether this seat is in play.
How it has voted for president
| Two-party margin | 2016 | 2020 | 2024 |
|---|---|---|---|
| President | R+8.5 | R+8.2 | R+11.3 |
A shift of 2.8 points toward the Republicans from 2016 to 2024. county returns summed; MEDSL county file (2016), an MIT-licensed county file (2020, checked against certified state results) and MEDSL precinct returns (2024). For a district split across counties this is an estimate, and where the state published the exact 2024 figure for these lines, that exact figure is the one the model uses.
The state in numbers
| Measure | State | Average state | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bachelor's degree or higher, 25+, 2023 | 30.9% | 34.0% | -3.1 pts |
| White, non-Hispanic, 2023 | 76.5% | 66.3% | +10.2 pts |
| Black, non-Hispanic, 2023 | 12.1% | 10.1% | +2.0 pts |
| Hispanic or Latino, 2023 | 4.6% | 12.9% | -8.3 pts |
| Asian, non-Hispanic, 2023 | 2.4% | 4.4% | -1.9 pts |
| Foreign-born, 2023 | 5.0% | 9.6% | -4.6 pts |
| Median age, 2023 | 39.6 | 39.1 | +0.52 |
| Median household income, 2023 | $69,680 | $77,633 | $-7,953 |
| Median home value, 2023 | $199,200 | $314,132 | $-114,932 |
| Owner-occupied homes, 2023 | 67.0% | 67.4% | -0.4 pts |
| Unemployment (ACS), 2023 | 4.9% | 4.8% | +0.1 pts |
| Federal government workers, 2023 | 2.0% | 3.0% | -1.0 pts |
| Work from home, 2023 | 11.5% | 12.3% | -0.8 pts |
| Households on SNAP, 2023 | 12.4% | 11.1% | +1.3 pts |
| Households with Social Security income, 2023 | 31.9% | 32.1% | -0.2 pts |
| Households with public assistance income, 2023 | 2.5% | 2.6% | -0.1 pts |
| Moved in from another state, past year, 2023 | 1.7% | 2.9% | -1.2 pts |
| Gini index, 2023 | 0.47 | 0.47 | +0.00 |
| Unemployment, latest month (BLS), 2026-07 | 3.5% | 4.0% | -0.5 pts |
| Change in unemployment, past 12 months, 2026-07 | -1.4 pts | -0.1 pts | -1.3 pts |
| Change since the last election (24 months), 2026-07 | -1.3 pts | -0.1 pts | -1.2 pts |
| Per-capita personal income (BEA), 2024 | $64,464 | $70,662 | $-6,198 |
| Per-capita income growth since 2019, nominal, 2024 | 30.5% | 32.4% | -1.9 pts |
| Government and other transfers, share of income, 2024 | 21.1% | 19.4% | +1.8 pts |
| Social Security, share of income, 2022 | 6.5% | 6.1% | +0.4 pts |
| Medicare, share of income, 2022 | 5.2% | 4.4% | +0.8 pts |
| Medicaid, share of income, 2022 | 4.5% | 3.8% | +0.7 pts |
| SNAP, share of income, 2022 | 0.7% | 0.6% | +0.1 pts |
| Earned Income Tax Credit, share of income, 2022 | 0.4% | 0.3% | +0.0 pts |
| Veterans' benefits, share of income, 2022 | 0.7% | 0.9% | -0.2 pts |
| Federal civilian jobs, share of all jobs, 2022 | 1.1% | 1.5% | -0.4 pts |
| Military jobs, share of all jobs, 2022 | 0.5% | 1.2% | -0.7 pts |
ACS 5-year state tables; BLS county unemployment and BEA county income, transfers and jobs summed to the state. Every figure is a named column of a named public-domain table, archived before it was read.
Who is ahead, and by how much?
Two numbers because they answer two questions. The nowcast is where opinion stands; the election-day forecast is where it is likely to end up.
How likely is each to win?
Monte Carlo error is ±0.2 points. A change smaller than that is simulation noise rather than news, and this page will not describe it as movement.
How wide is the range?
Nowcast: 90% of simulations fall between -7.5 and +10.5 points. Election day: -9.6 to +12.6. The election-day interval is 4.2 points wider, which is the 33 days of movement still to come.
What is the uncertainty made of?
Total sd 7.03 points, made of race-specific polling error 50%, drift to election day 33%, correlated polling error 12%, latent opinion 5%. The decomposition is stored with the forecast rather than reconstructed, so a probability whose dominant input is a placeholder is visibly that.
What evidence is this built on?
25 polls, most recent 2026-09-29. 38% verified against a primary source.
What changed since the last run?
Shaded band is the 90% interval, line is the central estimate, positive is Sherrod Brown ahead of Jon Husted. Over 18 stored forecasts the central estimate moved -1.3 points. There were 7 specification changes (marked on the axis) and 3 new polls arrived over this window — so the movement mixes new evidence with changes to the model.
Since 2026-10-01: margin +0.00 points, win probability +0.0 points, on +0 polls. Of that, +0.00 points came from +0 poll(s), -0.00 from the shorter horizon, and +0.00 from the model specification.
How has this model done before?
Measured on 230 forecasts across 230 races in cycles 2016,2018,2020,2022,2024: mean absolute error 4.56 points, Brier score 0.0543. The nominal 90% interval contained the result 94% of the time, the 80% interval 84%, and the 50% interval 47%. Read that with care: a national polling miss moves every race in a cycle at once, so the sample size for a question about the intervals is 5 cycle(s), not 230 forecasts. Per cycle -- bias +1.644 pts; 2016: n=43 bias=+4.68 cov90=0.860; 2018: n=63 bias=-0.52 cov90=1.000; 2020: n=35 bias=+5.44 cov90=0.886; 2022: n=54 bias=-0.60 cov90=0.944; 2024: n=35 bias=+1.48 cov90=1.000.
Where did every number come from?
Nowcast run b6afeaf6-b3d4-4831-bf61-ef35a3b951c1 and election-day run 7cdbf46d-300e-4938-891b-1cc30a56dcb5, model single_race_latent/0.8.1 at commit bdf7e83107c17a2399efe61a44ef1bbee48f9284, seeds 20260924 and 20260924.