COLUMBUS, Ohio - Sen. Sherrod Brown said Tuesday that he plans to run for reelection in 2024, when his current term ends.
Brown, a Cleveland Democrat fielded a question on the subject at the end of an interview on an unrelated subject. He gave a terse, one-word answer when asked if he plans to run for reelection: “Yes.”
“There is a longer answer, but that’s my point,” Brown said when pressed to elaborate. “I haven’t formally announced, but I plan to.”
Brown gave a similar answer in July 2021 when Politico asked whether he would run for reelection in 2024. Brown also told Spectrum News in 2020 that he planned to run for reelection after dropping an exploratory bid to run for president earlier in the election cycle.
“Sherrod is proud to represent the people of Ohio and plans to continue working in the Senate to ensure Ohioans’ hard work pays off,” a Brown campaign spokesperson said.
Brown, who first was elected to the Senate in 2006, would be seeking his third six-year term. He was reelected in 2012, a year then-President Barack Obama won Ohio, and again in 2018, a favorable year nationally for Democrats, but which saw Republicans otherwise win every statewide, non-judicial office in Ohio.
The political geography has gotten tougher for Ohio Democrats over the course of Brown’s term, with ex-President Donald Trump convincingly winning the state in 2016 and 2020. Republicans are expecting a good year this year, with Gov. Mike DeWine favored to win reelection against his Democratic challenger, Nan Whaley, though the U.S. Senate race between Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan and Republican author J.D. Vance has been surprisingly competitive.
While this year’s election is not yet over, several Ohio Republicans already have begun positioning themselves to potentially challenge Brown in 2024.
That includes Secretary of State Frank LaRose, who is running for reelection this year after passing on the senate race, and state Sen. Matt Dolan, who placed a surprisingly high third in the contentious Republican Senate primary election in May, and whose state senate district in the Cleveland suburbs has become increasingly Democratic in recent years.
Democrats will face a tough Senate map in 2024, and will be defending three Senate seats in states that Trump won in 2020 – Ohio; Montana, in a seat held by Sen. Jon Tester; and West Virginia, in a seat held by Sen. Joe Manchin.