David Skolnick

Throughout his political career, Democrat Sherrod Brown has talked about the “dignity of work.”

So it came as little surprise that Brown recently announced the creation of the Dignity of Work Institute, which will focus on empowering and growing the middle class.

But Brown also is a career politician who spent 48 of the previous 50 years in elected office. He wanted to spend at least six more years, but lost in November to Republican Bernie Moreno for the Senate seat Brown held for the previous 18 years.

While Brown wanted to talk Monday to the media about his new institute, there was no avoiding asking about his next political move or if he is going to stop running for elected office.

Brown was a rarity — a statewide Democrat in Ohio, which is a Republican state that has only become more red with the popularity of President Donald Trump.

Brown was first elected to the Senate in 2006, beating Republican Mike DeWine, then a two-term incumbent and now governor, in a landslide. It was a great year for Democrats nationwide with Republican George W. Bush serving as a very unpopular president.

Brown was reelected in 2012 with Democratic President Barack Obama on the same ballot. Brown outperformed Obama, and it was the last time anyone not named Trump won the presidency in Ohio.

Brown won again in 2018 against a weak candidate in a race that most Republicans had written off. Yet Brown won by only 6.8% against Republican Jim Renacci.

Brown put up a good fight against Moreno, who won by 4.6%. But it was a losing battle with Trump trouncing Democrat Kamala Harris by 11.2% at the top of the ticket. There were only so many Trump-Brown voters.

In his first news conference with Ohio reporters to launch his institute, reporters were wondering about another political bid for Brown.

Asked if the institute would play a role in his political future, if he would again run for office and when he would have a decision, Brown said, “One, this institute is not part of those plans, period. Second, I don’t know. This news conference, this discussion, is about the dignity of work. It’s not about my or anybody else’s political aspirations. I don’t know what I’m going to do in the future except I’m going to be focused on raising money and hiring and gathering information and more data about workers for the Dignity of Workers Institute.”

That’s definitely not a no.

Brown has done nothing to put an end to the speculation so let’s speculate.

If Brown seeks another elected office, it would either be for the U.S. Senate or for governor.

A Democrat winning statewide in Ohio is going to be extremely difficult in this political climate. But Brown is the party’s best hope.

If he were to run for the Senate, he would face Republican Jon Husted, who was appointed Jan. 17 by DeWine to the vacancy created by the resignation of J.D. Vance to become vice president.

Husted spent the past six years as lieutenant governor and before that was secretary of state for eight years and is a former Ohio House speaker.

Husted was planning to run next year for governor. It has been a goal of his for a long time.

But he’s a realist.

Husted was likely going to struggle in a Republican primary with Vivek Ramaswamy, a wealthy biotech entrepreneur with close ties to Trump — the president endorsed him the day he announced for governor. Husted wasn’t going to beat Ramaswamy.

Not that being a U.S. senator is a consolation prize, but Husted clearly had his heart set on being governor.

Husted has to run next year for the final two years of Vance’s unexpired Senate term and then in 2028 for a full six-year term.

It’s doubtful Husted will face stiff opposition in the Republican primary as virtually all of the prominent GOP names have already announced plans to run for other elected offices except DeWine, who is going to retire from politics after his gubernatorial term finishes at the end of 2026.

Could Brown beat Husted?

Trump wouldn’t be on the ballot as he was when Brown lost to Moreno last year so that’s a benefit to the Democrat. While Husted is positioning himself as a Trump loyalist, I don’t know if the president would campaign hard for him so this is probably Brown’s best option if he were to seek a return to politics.

Running for governor would be more difficult.

But Brown could look at the job.

The only Democratic candidate for governor is Dr. Amy Acton, a Youngstown native who served as DeWine’s health director during the early part of the COVID-19 pandemic. Acton’s campaign reported she will raise about $600,000 in the first quarter, which ends Monday, and a record for a Democratic governor candidate for that period of time.

Acton campaigned last year for Brown so I doubt she would have entered the governor’s race without him saying he wasn’t going to join her. But Brown in 2006 initially took a pass on the Senate race only to later get into it.

Also, Brown recently moved from Cleveland to Bexley, a Columbus suburb.

Connie Schultz, Brown’s wife, wrote in a Substack post that the move was because of family — five of their eight children live in Columbus — and it significantly reduces the drive time to her teaching job at Denison University.

She also wrote: “We are a public couple and have lived much of our lives out loud, so there will be the usual political speculation about why we are willing to make this move. I’d like to get ahead of that nonsense, if ever so briefly.”

It was ever so brief.