Ohio’s Brown Shows His Populist Side in Bid to Win Senate Race in Red State

Steven T. Dennis, Mark Niquette and Alexandre Tanzi
·6 min read
1
  • Oops!
    Something went wrong.
    Please try again later.
  • Oops!
    Something went wrong.
    Please try again later.

(Bloomberg) -- A pair of corporate crises has given populist Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown a timely platform to blame big corporations for putting profits over people as he tries to overcome a Republican tide in Ohio and win his toughest reelection yet.

Most Read from Bloomberg

First there was the Norfolk Southern Corp. derailment in February that forced residents in eastern Ohio to flee a fireball of toxic smoke. Then SVB Financial Group collapsed, the biggest bank failure since 2008, followed by Signature Bank. Brown led the Senate reaction to both, negotiating a bipartisan rail safety bill and using his position as chairman of the Banking Committee to push the Federal Reserve to strengthen regulations on lenders.

The battles, coming as the 2024 campaign season gets underway, were a natural fit for Brown, who blames the disasters on Wall Street pressure and corporate lobbying to weaken regulations. “That’s the business model now for a lot of these companies,” Brown, 70, said in Columbus as trains rattled by after a press conference for the rail safety bill.

It’s far from clear, though, if Brown’s populist pitch will be enough next year in a race crucial to Senate control.

“He’s in for the fight of his political life this time given simply the fact that Ohio has changed so much,” said former Democratic Governor Ted Strickland.

Having Joe Biden, who lost Ohio in 2020 and announced his reelection bid on Tuesday, at the top of the ticket may not help. Ohio voted twice for Barack Obama but has since swung hard to the GOP. Donald Trump won here twice by 8 percentage points and Republican JD Vance won an open Senate seat by a 6-point margin. Republicans have swept control of state government.

Both Trump and Vance took aim at the economic dislocation suffered in Ohio, where hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs evaporated in the early 2000s. Industrial cities such as Youngstown still bear the rusty scars of a lost era.

But Brown’s long-standing opposition to deregulation is resonating with some voters in ways it may not have just months ago.

“The rail and the banking — the kind of issues that have popped up over the past three months — certainly put him in a good position,” John S. Esterly, a Teamsters’ rail union leader in Ohio who joined Brown at the Columbus event, said. “It’s difficult to not come from a position of ‘I told you so.’”

Earlier story: EPA Vows to Hold Norfolk Southern Accountable for Ohio Disaster

The number of jobs in the state has yet to recover to pre-Covid levels and overall population has dipped in the last year, according to the latest census figures. But there are signs of an economic turnaround — including a 3.8% unemployment rate that matches an all-time low — that further benefit Brown.

Manufacturing is reviving and employers are complaining of labor shortages as they compete for workers with a thriving logistics industry led by Amazon.com Inc. Companies are bringing back some jobs they shifted to other countries to shore up supply chains after pandemic disruptions. Construction employment has been a bright spot, buoyed by mega-projects like a $20 billion Intel Corp. chip-making hub going up near Columbus.

Related: $52 Billion Plan to Make Chips in the US Faces a Labor Shortage

Outside of the I-71 corridor, parts of the state continue to struggle, and that’s where key battles in the 2024 election will be waged.

Mahoning County is home to Youngstown and was long a Democratic bastion, but it has lost population along with steel mills and factories. Average incomes in the region badly trail the national average and dollar stores have flourished.

Brown won the county with 60.5% in 2018, but Vance edged Democrat Tim Ryan there last year.

Vance, who is working with Brown on rail safety, said he'll support the Republican nominee robustly but thinks Brown will be tougher to beat than more corporate-friendly Democrats. He pointed to blue-collar voters in places like Northeast Ohio.

"One of the things that we have to wake up to is these voters don't instinctively believe corporate America cares about them," he said.

Brown’s challenge comes from voters like Don and Betty Baun, registered Republicans who view themselves as independent from Richland County in central Ohio. Both said they previously voted for him, attracted by his message of sticking by working people and supporting unions. They even like his views on regulating railroads and banks.

But they said he’s become too liberal and has lost their vote.

“He also voted for the impeachment of President Trump,” Don Baun said, standing outside a Walmart. “He was totally wrong in doing that because he wasn’t following what his constituents I think as a whole wanted.”

Unlike many lawmakers in battleground states, Brown has repeatedly resisted advice to moderate his positions.

“I do well in elections in this state because people know that I’m authentic, that I do this because I believe it and I’ll always fight for it,” he said.

Brown credits his long-held position on trade for his crossover appeal with Trump voters, helping him win a 7-point victory in the 2018 midterms. The two even penned notes on the issue to each other days after Trump’s 2016 win. Brown insisted on revamping the deal with Canada and Mexico with tougher labor and enforcement provisions, at one point holding up an agreement for months until he was satisfied.

Brown won’t discuss the political impact of the recent rail and banking disasters and emphasized he’s not against business, just businesses behaving badly.

“I want companies to grow, I want more jobs, I want more corporations, I just want them to treat their workers and the public well,” he said. “I’m fine with Norfolk Southern being in the state but they’ve got to pay more attention to public safety.”

Republicans will pound away at Brown for a record that’s more liberal than the state, said Bob Paduchik, a former Ohio GOP chairman who was Trump’s state director in 2016. “He’s out of touch with Ohio,” he said.

Two candidates have filed to seek the Republican nomination: state Senator Matt Dolan and businessman Bernie Moreno. Others considering the race include Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose and US Representative Warren Davidson.

Melissa Smith of East Palestine, a Democrat who lives on a farm less than a mile from the Norfolk Southern derailment, praised Brown, who has visited the town repeatedly including at a roundtable she hosted, for focusing on the cleanup and rail safety.

Earlier: Norfolk Southern CEO Chided in Senate Hours After New Derailment

“As long as he sticks to that, he’s got my vote,” Smith said.

She’s back in her home after evacuating and her fragrant-candle shop is open for business, though residents have longer-term concerns. “There is a large population out here that feels like no one’s hearing them and look down on them,” Smith said.

Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek

©2023 Bloomberg L.P.