Former Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown lagged behind Republican Sen. Jon Husted in the first public poll since the Ohio Democrat launched his comeback bid, as Democrats face an uphill battle to reclaim the upper chamber next year.
Brown trailed behind the incumbent Republican by six points in a new Emerson College poll released Friday morning. Fifty percent of registered voters said they’d vote for Husted if the election took place today, while 44 percent expressed support for Brown. Seven percent of voters said they were yet undecided.
Husted’s lead comes even as Brown holds higher name recognition among voters — only 14 percent of voters said they were unsure or hadn’t heard of the longtime Democratic senator, while 39 percent said the same of Husted.
“Husted has a 16-point lead among male voters and voters without a college degree, and a 14-point lead among voters over 40,” Spencer Kimball, executive director of Emerson College Polling, said. “Brown has a 13-point lead among voters under 40, a three-point lead among women voters, and an eight-point lead among independent voters.”
After speculation about a potential gubernatorial run, Brown launched his Senate bid earlier this week, teeing up over a yearlong battle with Husted for the seat.
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine tapped Husted to fill JD Vance’s vacant Senate seat after Vance ascended to the vice presidency this year.
A victory for Brown would be a welcome boost for Democrats, as they mount a long-shot battle to retake the Senate in 2026. But Friday’s poll demonstrates the tough odds the longtime Democratic elected official faces in an increasingly red state.
And Brown wasn’t the only Democrat falling behind in Friday’s survey.
Republican Vivek Ramaswamy held a 10-point lead over Democrat Amy Acton in a hypothetical gubernatorial matchup: 49 to 39 percent, with 12 percent undecided. Acton gained name recognition as the state’s public health director through the Covid-19 pandemic, earning her the support of Ohio’s Democratic base — and placing her in the crosshairs of conservatives as outrage bubbled over about the state’s controversial school closures.
While Acton is currently the only declared Democratic candidate for governor, former Rep. Tim Ryan has also been mulling tossing his hat in the ring. But a potential contest between Ryan and Ramaswamy showed the Republican leading 49 percent to 41 percent, with 10 percent undecided.
According to the Emerson poll, Ramaswamy’s strength lies in his support among younger voters — the onetime presidential candidate outperformed Husted with voters under 30 by five points.
The survey also asked voters if they thought the state’s congressional maps were drawn fairly, or if they were drawn to benefit either the Republican or Democratic Party. The state is legally required to redraw the map this year because the post-2020 Census map passed with just Republican support.
Forty-one percent of respondents said they thought the state’s maps were drawn to give an advantage to Republicans, while 23 percent said they thought the lines were drawn fairly and 8 percent said they thought they were drawn to the advantage of Democrats. Twenty-nine percent said they were unsure either way.
Ohio mapmakers are set to redraw the state’s congressional lines this year and could tilt the map even more toward the GOP. There is now a nationwide redistricting arms race following a dramatic struggle over the Texas legislature’s efforts to push through a partisan gerrymander favoring the state’s Republicans earlier this summer.
Coming out of the prolonged battle in the lone star state, Democrats have vowed to fight hard over Ohio’s upcoming map redraw. But the state’s Democrats face an uphill battle, as Republicans hold a majority in the legislature and the state’s redistricting board, giving Democrats little recourse to push back against a new map.
The Emerson College survey was conducted from among 1,000 active Ohio registered voters between Aug. 18-19, 2025, with a credibility interval of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
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