A conservative group is committing millions to help save Republican Ohio Sen. Jon Husted, whose race is likely to determine control of the upper chamber during the midterms.
The Sentinel Action Fund (SAF) announced its endorsement of Husted, who is facing a tight challenge from former three-term Democratic Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown, via a Wednesday press release first shared with the Daily Caller News Foundation. The GOP-aligned super PAC and its affiliated group Right Vote are together spending more than $8 million in the race to “support activities to engage and mobilize voters early.”
Although President Donald Trump won Ohio by over 11 percentage points in the 2024 presidential election, the Buckeye State’s special senate election is in a dead heat with multiple recent polls showing the difference between Husted and Brown within the margin of error. If Democrats fail to win the race, their path to retaking the Senate becomes significantly tougher.
“There could not be a more stark contrast than radical Democrat Sherrod Brown,” SAF President Jessica Anderson said in a statement to the DCNF. “Ohio voters rejected Sherrod Brown in 2024 because he turned his back on Ohio and put his loyalty to [Senate Minority Leader] Chuck Schumer and the Democrat Party’s extreme-left policies on open borders, government fraud and handouts to illegals, and submission to the trans agenda.”
Republican Gov. Mike DeWine appointed Husted, 58, to the Senate seat vacated by Vice President JD Vance in January 2025. Since Ohio’s 2026 Senate race is a special election, the winner will still have to run for reelection in 2028 for a full six-year term.
Brown, 73, had held Ohio’s other Senate seat for 18 consecutive years before narrowly losing his bid for a third term to Republican Ohio Sen. Bernie Moreno in 2024. Before that he has served in the U.S. House, as Ohio’s Secretary of State and in the Ohio State House, having won his first election in 1974.
“Sherrod Brown represents everything that is wrong with Democrat politicians – rubbing shoulders with Hollywood elites, and fighting for New York and San Francisco values. Sherrod Brown has also opposed reasonable policies like voter ID and border security, and he has tried to stand in President Trump’s way to deliver working class tax cuts and move jobs back to America,” Anderson’s statement continued. “And he has stood in the way of pro-innovation policies when it comes to digital assets.”
Brown announced on April 7 that he raised a combined $12.5 million for the first quarter of 2026 and had $16.4 million on hand, Semafor congressional bureau chief Burgess Everett reported at the time. The day before, the pro-GOP Senate Leadership fund announced it was investing nearly $80 million to protect Husted.
Husted is the third senate candidate SAF has back in 2026 midterm elections. The group previous endorsed Republican Michigan senate candidate Mike Rogers and Republican Maine Sen. Susan Collins.
The three Senate races the SAF has endorsed in thus far — Ohio, Michigan and Maine — are the only three 2026 upper chamber contests to be rated as “toss ups” by the nonpartisan Cook Political Report. Michigan is widely considered the GOP’s best opportunity to flip a Senate seat from blue to red in what is otherwise shaping up to be a difficult midterm cycle for the party. Collins meanwhile is the only Republican senator to represent a state failed Democratic nominee Kamala Harris carried in 2024.
SAF endorsed each of the three Republicans who defeated Democratic incumbents during the 2024 election cycle: Moreno, Montana Sen. Tim Sheehy and Pennsylvania Sen. Dave McCormick.
“Sentinel Action Fund’s ground game operations mobilized Ohioans to vote Brown out of office in 2024, and we are thrilled to endorse Republican Jon Husted, who will send Sherrod Brown packing for good this November,” Anderson noted.
The group describes itself on its website as “the only Super PAC on the Right with a year-round ground game committed to turning out absentee, early vote, and ‘day of’ voters.”
“In his first year in the Senate, Republican Senator Jon Husted has already proven he is a conservative fighter who stands up for Ohio values and President [Donald] Trump’s agenda,” Anderson continued, pointing to the senator’s support of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act’s tax breaks and election integrity legislation.
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