Sherrod Brown leans on union households to win back an Ohio Senate seat

It was a homecoming of sorts for Sherrod Brown. At the Ohio AFL-CIO's biennial gathering in Columbus, steelworkers, utility workers and construction workers greeted the 73-year-old Democrat with cheers and handshakes.

"I want you to talk to people, because people will listen to you," Brown told them. If you're a pipefitter, other pipefitters will listen to you, he said, as will friends at church, at school and in the neighborhood.

A comeback bid

Two years ago, Brown lost his Senate seat to Republican businessman Bernie Moreno by less than 4 points, while Trump carried Ohio by more than 11. Now Brown is running against Republican Sen. Jon Husted, who was appointed to fill JD Vance's seat after Vance became vice president. The race is a toss-up and could help decide control of the Senate for Trump's final two years in office.

Brown is counting on the voters who once made him the only Democrat still winning statewide races in Ohio. That coalition began slipping in 2016, when Trump won 54% of union households in the state to Hillary Clinton's 41%.

Door to door

With early voting underway, union volunteers are canvassing for Brown. Dave Janiszewski, who split his career between a steel plant and a paper plant before retiring, now knocks on doors around Columbus in a United Steelworkers jacket. "I've personally met him, know him," he told one young man. "He's always been there for working people."

Supporters point to Brown's record: opposing NAFTA, joining picket lines, wearing only Ohio-made suits, and passing the 2021 Butch Lewis Act, which rescued the pensions of millions of union workers.

Dorsey Hager of the Columbus/Central Ohio Building and Construction Trades Council, which has backed Republicans before but endorsed Brown this year, acknowledged many members voted for Trump. He said construction workers tell him they are squeezed by high gas and diesel prices, food costs and inflation even with jobs plentiful.

Labor is not a monolith

Not every union is with Brown. The building trades councils in Cleveland and Toledo have endorsed Husted, calling him a "friend and advocate" for construction workers, and the Boilermakers are backing him for his support of union jobs in power plants, refineries and shipbuilding.

Brown argues Husted looks out for Wall Street, drug companies and the tech firms building data centers across Ohio with tax breaks Husted championed as lieutenant governor. In Lake County, one of eight counties that flipped away from Brown last time, Republican commissioner John Plecnik predicted union members will choose Husted because he supports Trump, citing border security. "People aren't stupid," Plecnik said.

The outcome in Ohio's union towns may say a lot about whether Democrats can win back the working-class voters who have drifted away over the past decade.