This is another close endorsement.
CIVPAC endorses Democrat Sherrod Brown over Republican Jon Husted for the United States Senate from Ohio. We do so with substantial reservations about Brown and considerable respect for parts of Husted’s record.
Indeed, under different national circumstances, this endorsement might well go the other way.
If Donald Trump and Trumpism were not such dominant forces within the Republican Party—or if a left-leaning Democratic president were governing with Democratic control of Congress—Husted’s more market-oriented economics, support for school choice and sympathy for right-to-work principles might tip the balance in his favor.
But those are not the circumstances in which Ohio voters are choosing a senator in 2026.
The Case for Husted
Jon Husted is not an election denier or an isolationist.
On January 6, 2021, he condemned the attack on the Capitol and emphasized the importance of the peaceful constitutional transfer of power. That record deserves credit.
His foreign-policy record also contains important positives. He has supported strong sanctions against Russia and, in August, backed legislation aimed at reducing the resources available to Vladimir Putin’s war effort, declaring that “America stands with Ukraine.”
On several domestic issues, Husted is closer to CIVPAC than Brown.
He has long supported school choice and is more sympathetic to right-to-work principles and generally more comfortable with markets and private enterprise.
Husted also supports making the Hyde Amendment permanent. That is consistent with CIVPAC’s compromise position on abortion. We believe abortion should generally remain legal, while also recognizing that citizens who profoundly object to abortion should not ordinarily be required to finance it through federal taxes. Husted’s broader abortion position is substantially more restrictive than ours, but on Hyde he is closer to our position than Brown.
He has also proposed requiring utility regulators to consider protections preventing large data centers from shifting their infrastructure costs onto ordinary ratepayers. Data centers should face prices reflecting the incremental costs they impose on electric systems and an appropriate share of the fixed costs of utility infrastructure.
His support for housing reforms intended to increase supply by reducing regulatory barriers is similarly consistent with our preference for addressing high prices by improving supply rather than suppressing prices administratively.
These are meaningful strengths.
Brown Has Plenty of Warts
Sherrod Brown does not generally approach economic policy from a pro-market perspective.
He has spent much of his career closely allied with organized labor. CIVPAC is not hostile to private-sector unions, but we support worker choice and the continued ability of states to maintain right-to-work laws.
Brown has also been a protectionist for much of his career. His opposition to President Trump’s broad and unpredictable tariff policies is a point in his favor in this race, but CIVPAC generally favors open trade.
His instinct toward price regulation is another concern. Brown proposes capping utility rate increases. We think that is the wrong approach. If the real cost of supplying electricity has risen, suppressing the regulated price does not eliminate the cost. It shifts it elsewhere and can weaken incentives for conservation, new supply and efficient investment.
Where Brown Has a Point
Brown is on much firmer economic ground when he argues that large data centers should pay the utility costs they impose rather than shifting those costs onto other customers.
We also find appealing his proposal to prevent pharmaceutical companies from charging Americans more for the same drugs than they charge consumers in comparable developed countries. A most-favored-nation approach to drug pricing deserves serious consideration.
Abortion and Personal Liberty
On the underlying question of legal access to abortion, Brown is substantially closer to CIVPAC’s position.
We oppose the sweeping abortion restrictions favored by Husted and support broad legal access to abortion. But our position is deliberately a compromise rather than the position of either political party.
Husted is closer to us on public funding through the Hyde Amendment, but Brown is substantially closer to us on the more fundamental question of whether abortion should remain broadly legal.
Checks and Balances in a Partisan Age
The consideration that ultimately tips this endorsement may not be any single policy.
The Constitution assumes that the legislative and executive branches will check one another. Madison expected institutional ambition to counter institutional ambition.
Modern political parties have weakened that mechanism. Members of Congress increasingly behave not simply as legislators defending congressional authority but as members of a political team. When the president belongs to their party, they often tolerate executive conduct they would condemn if undertaken by a president of the opposing party.
That problem is not uniquely Republican. A Democratic Congress can become excessively deferential to a Democratic president just as a Republican Congress can become excessively deferential to a Republican president.
As a result, effective constitutional checks and balances may now sometimes require that the presidency and Congress be controlled by opposing political parties.
That has not always been necessary, and it is not the constitutional system the framers expected. But CIVPAC must evaluate institutions as they actually function. Today, partisan loyalty too often overwhelms institutional loyalty.
Husted’s earlier record demonstrates that he is capable of independence. His response to January 6 is evidence of that.
His actual Senate record, however, gives us considerably less reassurance.
Husted voted to confirm Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense, Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as Secretary of Health and Human Services, and Kash Patel as FBI Director. Each was among President Trump’s most controversial nominees. Hegseth required the vice president to break a 50–50 tie; Gabbard and Kennedy were confirmed 52–48. The Senate roll-call record documents those votes.
More recently, Husted voted to confirm Todd Blanche as Attorney General, again in a 50–49 vote, according to Husted’s own Senate voting record.
These nominees were not merely controversial. In our judgment, several were unqualified, counterproductive choices, or had backgrounds suggesting hostility toward important parts of the missions of the agencies they were chosen to lead.
Other Republican senators demonstrated repeatedly that supporting a Republican president did not require supporting him on every important vote.
When the Senate considered terminating President Trump’s emergency global tariffs, Republican senators Susan Collins, Mitch McConnell, Lisa Murkowski and Rand Paul joined Democrats in challenging the administration. Husted voted to leave the tariffs in place.
The same issue arose even more directly over constitutional war powers. In June 2025, Senator Rand Paul joined Democrats in supporting a resolution asserting congressional authority over unauthorized hostilities against Iran. Husted voted against it.
These votes matter to us not because Husted must agree with Democrats, or even because CIVPAC necessarily agrees with every resolution involved.
They matter because the Senate’s advice-and-consent power, authority over tariffs and constitutional role in questions of war provide precisely the opportunities in which legislators can demonstrate independence from a president of their own party.
Other Republican senators have sometimes done so.
Husted generally has not.
That concerns us more than his acceptance of Trump’s endorsement or campaign rhetoric about advancing the America First agenda. It is evidence from the exercise of the office itself.
Why the Balance Tips to Brown
Brown has plenty of positions we would change. We would prefer less protectionism, less reliance on price controls, and greater respect for worker choice in labor policy.
But he also supports reproductive freedom, has been a strong supporter of Ukraine and the Western alliance system, and opposes Trump’s broad tariff strategy.
Most importantly in the present political environment, Brown would provide an independent legislative counterweight to the Trump administration.
Jon Husted remains closer to CIVPAC on several important issues. Under a Democratic president with a left-leaning Congress, we could readily imagine those differences leading us to endorse him instead.
The principle works in both directions. A Republican Congress can provide an important check on an overreaching Democratic president just as a Democratic Congress can check an overreaching Republican president.
The question is not which party deserves power in the abstract. It is where power needs to be checked now.
In 2026, that consideration tips the balance toward Sherrod Brown.
This is not an endorsement of Brown’s economic philosophy. It is a comparative judgment between two experienced, imperfect candidates under the political circumstances the country actually faces.
We believe Brown is more likely to provide the independence, institutional balance, support for personal liberty, and resistance to excessive executive power that the Senate presently needs.
CIVPAC endorses Sherrod Brown for the United States Senate from Ohio.