The Dictatorship
Sherrod Brown could stage a 2026 upset — but he’s going to have to change some things
The Cleveland Plain Dealer reported Tuesday that Sherrod Brown, a three-term U.S. senator who lost to Cleveland auto dealer Bernie Moreno in last year’s election, has decided to run for the Senate seat JD Vance had before he was elected vice president. The Plain Dealer quoted Ohio labor leaders who said Brown told them of his plan to run for the seat now occupied by former Ohio Lt. Gov. Jon Husted. Brown, who would give Democrats a chance at reclaiming the Senate, is expected to formally announce his intentions within the next two weeks.
Brown, who would give Democrats a chance at reclaiming the Senate, is expected to formally announce within the next two weeks.
The news doesn’t come as a big surprise. When Brown lost to Moreno, few people in Ohio politics expected the populist Democrat to walk off into the sunset. And the signs of his potential return have been hard to miss. He and his wife relocated to Columbus from the Cleveland area this year, which added to speculation that he was biding his time for a political comeback. When he and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer were seen huddling in a Columbus restaurant in late July, it seemed clear to political insiders Schumer was part of a recruitment campaign to convince Brown to run in 2026.
The news that the 72-year-old Brown is running has been enthusiastically heralded by Ohio Democrats who see it as a recruitment coup for the party in its uphill battle to unseat Husted, who was appointed by Gov. Mike DeWine. Many Ohioans couldn’t tell you who Husted is, but almost everybody knows Brown. After some 50 years in public office, his wide name recognition in the state is undisputed. He’s a Democrat in a red state with a track record of winning against Republicans. Yes, Moreno, a Republican political newcomer, ended Brown’s winning streak last year when he won by about 3.5 percentage points. But President Donald Trump won the state by 11 pointswhich suggests that Brown appealed to a segment of voters who chose Trump. Clearly, Moreno benefited from Trump’s coattails.
Husted cast his lot with the top 10% over the welfare of working Ohioans when he voted for Trump’s debt-ballooning $4 trillion tax cut to the ultra-rich on the backs of the poor. So in 2026, without Trump leading the ticket, Husted could be vulnerable to a well-experienced challenger with a chip on his shoulder who can effectively energize an already highly motivated base to turn out in droves for the midterms. By the time voters go to the polls next year, who knows how much fallout there will have been from the anything but “beautiful bill” Husted supported? But a sufficient number of Ohioans is likely to be fighting mad about sky-high prices, shuttered factories, dropped health insurance, shredded safety nets, gutted public services and a reduction in vital veterans’ support. There’s also likely to be anger at armed military in the streets and sprawling detention centers for immigrants that simulate concentration camps.
Brown will work to make Husted own the pain caused to Ohio families who will lose their SNAP benefits, to Ohio veterans who will be denied care to due to mass staffing cuts and eliminated services, and to the strategically delayed (until after the midterms) Medicaid cuts and work requirements that could leave 440,000 Ohioans uninsured.
Expect him to launch a sustained offensive against Husted’s rubber-stamp endorsement of historic cuts to Medicaid and food assistance.
Expect Brown to lead the charge for human dignity over despair, justice over lawlessness, better outcomes for everyday Americans over what the Trumpian plutocracy offers in scraps to everyone but the favored wealthy. Expect him to launch a sustained offensive against Husted’s rubber-stamp endorsement of historic cuts to Medicaid and food assistance that will be paid for by hundreds of thousands of uninsured and hungry constituents.
But Brown cannot wage the same old-school, play-it-safe campaign he ran in 2024, when even challenger Moreno mocked him publicly for his timidity to make waves. He cannot pull punches. He cannot misread the moment or the mindset of rank-and-file Democrats, independents and Never-Trumpers who are screaming for bold, authentic, tell-it-like-it-is fighters to save the country. They have had it with play-by-the-book, norms-abiding, feckless politicians who talk like infuriating politicians. If Brown can make it personal with Ohio voters who feel betrayed by Husted and his party, who are drowning in the cost of living, struggling to afford tariff-inflated groceries, utilities, out-of-pocket medical care and ever rising rent on incomes stretched to the max, he can win.
If he can make it personal with Ohio farmers reeling from Trump’s funding cuts to promised subsidies and market-destroying tariffs slapped on key trading partners, he can broaden his appeal in rural communities. If he can make it personal about growing numbers of children and seniors denied food aid in the bill Husted endorsedhe can make empathy a call for action. If he can make it personal on immigrants Ohioans know and respect being treated like dogs as masked thugs raid farms and Home Depot parking lots to stuff them into unmarked vans to be disappeared, he can be a welcomed voice for humanity, decency and the rule of law to forcefully counter a lawless Trump regime Husted supports.
Ohio Demcorats haven’t cultivated a farm team of young, communications-savvy Democrats who can win a statewide election. Thus, Brown is the only real chance Democrats have against Husted. In addition to having to defend the big, awful bill to constituents on the losing end of unpaid-for giveaways to the wealthiest Americans, Husted, a former state lawmaker, will also have to defend himself from the stench of being associated with a bribery scandal that involved the utility company FirstEnergy spending $61 million for a $1 billion bailout and resulted in a former Republican Ohio House Speaker being sentenced to 20 years in federal prison.
Text messages between a FirstEnergy CEO and a vice president who have since been charged in an alleged federal racketeering conspiracy related to the bribery scandal include descriptions of phone conversations they say they had with Husted about the legislation— some he apparently initiated — and reveal that they considered him the lawmaker handling the details of the bailout legislation. Husted, who was never charged with a crime, has said he didn’t know about any bribes regarding the bailout legislation that he helped get passed.
If Brown taps into the growing movement demanding a course correction, raises enough money to compete with the ton of cash coming Husted’s way and reminds voters why they sent him to the U.S. Senate three times before, he could well return to the upper chamber on Capitol Hill in a blue-wave election. But “if” is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. Husted has to be considered the favorite. A Brown win would be an upset.
Marila Johanek
Marilou Johanek is a veteran Ohio print and broadcast journalist who has covered state and national politics in addition to early writing and producing stints at CBS News and BLN. The Ohio native has also analyzed policymaking and political players as a longtime newspaper editorial writer and columnist. She is currently a weekly columnist for the Ohio Capital Journal, which is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.
California voters will consider a controversial proposal in November to temporarily raise taxes on billionaires after the labor union backing the measure announced Thursday it would forge ahead despite pressure from critics to withdraw it.
The proposal, backed by the Service Employees International Union Healthcare Workers West, would impose a one-time 5% tax on individuals whose net worth exceeds $1 billion and who were living in the state as of Jan. 1, 2026. The goal is to generate $100 billion in revenue, mainly to fund the state’s Medicaid system after federal cuts.
“I am all in on this,” union President Dave Regan said on a Zoom call, adding that opponents of the proposal are “totally out of touch.”
Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom and many traditional allies of the union oppose the measure. They argue it is a temporary fix for an ongoing problem and that it would push the ultrawealthy to leave the state, taking the money they would contribute in income taxes with them. Newsom, who is considering a presidential run as he prepares to leave office in January, has generally opposed tax increases during his time as governor.
A coalition of healthcare, education and housing groups — including the California Medical Association and California School Boards Association — banded together last week to fight the tax.
“The dangerous wealth tax directly threatens vital funding for education and schools, healthcare and clinics, public safety, and infrastructure projects by making California’s revenue even more volatile,” the coalition said in a statement.
Brian Brokaw, a Newsom political adviser who is leading a political committee opposing the tax, said it would “make California’s biggest challenges worse.”
“Driving away the state’s sustainable tax base for a one-time grab is bad policy and an even worse deal for 40 million Californians who will be left holding the bag,” he said in a statement.
Under the proposal, the state would spend the money generated from the tax over multiple years. The nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office estimates that the proposal would generate tens of billions of dollars in the first few years, but that income tax revenues would subsequently decline by hundreds of millions of dollars annually.
Many of the Silicon Valley tech moguls who oppose the measure have already moved their assets to other states or threatened to do so to avoid the possible tax. They have also spent millions to try to defeat it.
Since the proposal was announced in October, Google co-founder Sergey Brin has donated $82 million to a political committee called Building a Better California that backs a variety of initiatives designed to blunt the billionaire tax proposal. It has raised more than $118 million, counting Brin’s contributions, from fewer than a dozen donors.
California relies on its top 1% of earnersfor nearly half of its personal income tax revenue.
The union offered to scale back its proposal last week, asking Newsom to back a 2% tax on billionaires instead. But the governor’s office said the lower rate didn’t change his stance.
The proposed tax may have piqued the interest of many Democrats because it comes at a time when they are particularly concerned about affordability, income inequality and federal cutbacks to government programs, said Martin Gilens, a political science professor at the University of California, Los Angeles.
“There’s kind of a perfect storm that sort of bolsters preexisting inclinations to be sympathetic to the idea of raising taxes on the well-to-do,” he said.
But there’s a catch. Support for ballot initiatives often declines as the election nears, and if the measure passes, it’s likely to face legal challenges, Gilens said.
Since taking office one week ago, Bill Pulte, the acting director of national intelligence, has busied himself on social media posting flattering photos of President Donald Trump, trivia about a former counterintelligence agent and praising his current staff.
What the Trump loyalist with no intelligence experience has not done is address the public about his plans, or calm the unease and confusion inside the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which is being described by top officials as “chaotic” amid firings of senior personnel with threats of more to come.
One image posted to the official X account of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, apparently artificial intelligence-generated, features Trump raising a clenched fist in the air with two B-2 stealth bombers in the sky behind him. Another is an image of the president, his fist clenched, glowering as he stands behind the Oval Office’s Resolute Desk.
In another post, Pulte, who was expected to gut the workforce of the National Counterterrorism Center, instead declared the staff there “true professionals and American patriots” after he said he spent time with them, adding “it is a privilege to work beside them.”
And in an apparent attempt at levity, Pulte reposted a message reminding Americans that Tuesday was “National Typewriter Day” and informing them of the role that a former Army counterintelligence agent played.
“Fun CI fact,” the post reads. “Former Army CI Special Agent Leroy Anderson composed ‘The Typewriter’ on October 9, 1950.”
But Pulte’s arrival has sparked anxiety and fear among the office’s workforce, three former U.S. intelligence officials told MS NOW, granted anonymity to address a sensitive topic.
They said that a half dozen political appointees were removed from their posts and several dozen staffers were sent back to their home intelligence agencies. Beyond that, little else is known about Pulte’s plans.
Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, told MS NOW that his requests for more information from the office, known by the acronym ODNI, have been rebuffed.
“I’ve been calling over there all day and can’t get my calls returned,” said Himes.
He later said, “I spoke directly to their office of congressional affairs. They said they had nothing for me.”
“It seems like it’s totally chaotic at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence,” Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said on a podcast Wednesday. “There was word that there was going to be firings and then he said he changed his mind. We don’t know.”
Marc Polymeropoulos, a former senior CIA official and now an MS NOW contributor, said that staff in the intelligence community do not know what to think.
“Everyone is in the same boat and unsure of what is going on,” he said. “That said, there is no love lost for the DNI, as many believe that there is redundancy that does need to be cut.”
The other former U.S. intelligence officials said they agree that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence is in need of reform. The agency was created after a lack of information sharing among U.S. intelligence agencies played a role in the failure to stop the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. ODNI’s mission is to ensure that the country’s now 18 different intelligence agencies share information with one another.
But the former intelligence officials said Pulte is patently unqualified to design or carry out those reforms.
“As with many things Trump alights upon, there is a sliver of truth here but he goes about addressing it in the worst possible way,” a former senior U.S. intelligence official told MS NOW, granted anonymity over concerns of retaliation. “But mass firings without any kind of sense of what you are trying to accomplish is addressing it in the most ham-handed way.”
That former official, as well as Warner and Himes, have said they fear that Pulte’s mission is to use his position as the nation’s top intelligence official to help Trump interfere in the midterm elections in November.
Pulte, who simultaneously serves as the Trump administration’s top federal housing official as head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, used government mortgage information to file several criminal referrals against Democrats whom Trump considered enemies, including Sen. Adam Schiff of California and New York State Attorney General Letitia James. None of Pulte’s referrals have resulted in criminal convictions.
One fear expressed by Warner and some former intelligence officials is that Pulte may try to falsely claim that his office has found evidence that foreign governments are secretly funding Democratic candidates.
One way he could do that, they say, is by falsely claiming foreign actors have hacked U.S. voting machines and altered vote totals in favor of Democrats. And Pulte and FBI agents could seize voting machines, ballots and election records in November — as Gabbard did in Fulton County, Georgia, last year at Trump’s behest — as part of voter fraud investigations that please the president.
“I have to tell you, I was extraordinarily concerned about the former director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, interfering in our election,” Warner told NPR earlier this month. “The concerns I had with Tulsi Gabbard now, upon reflection, look small versus the concerns I have with Bill Pulte.”
David Rohde is the senior national security reporter for MS NOW and a two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting. Previously he was the senior executive editor for national security and law for NBC News.
Former President Barack Obama slammed President Donald Trump for obsessing over him while serving in the nation’s highest office.
“I obviously, you know, have a room in his head. A suite in his head,” Obama said an an episode of the podcast “All The Smoke,” posted Wednesday.
“Look, first of all, when I was president, the last thing I had time to do was worry about what somebody said, or what my predecessor did,” Obama told the two hosts, former NBA players Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson. “They’re gone. I’ve got work to do.”
Trump has a long history of publicly insulting the former president, often invoking Obama’s middle name, Hussein.
Trump has also heavily promoted the false and racist “birther” conspiracy theory, which claimed that Obama was ineligible to serve as president because he was born in Kenya rather than the United States.
Earlier this year, Trump drew criticism after sharing a racist artificial intelligence-generated video on his Truth Social account depicting the former president and former first lady Michelle Obama as apes. The video was later deleted, and Trump did not apologize.
Before launching the war against Iran with Israel on Feb. 28, Trump repeatedly criticized the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the 2015 diplomatic agreement primarily negotiated by Obama that also limited Iran’s nuclear capabilities in exchange for sweeping economic sanctions relief.
More recently, Trump trashed the newly debuted Obama Presidential Center in Chicago as a “very unattractive building” and “total disaster,” adding that when his presidential library opens, it will be “on time, on budget, best location in Miami.”
Without mentioning Trump by name, Obama criticized leaders who fixate on their predecessors, characterizing their priorities as misplaced.
“If you’re doing the job right, everyday, you’ve got five, ten things that are real hard. And you have to be constantly focused,” Obama said.
“The idea that I’d be worrying about somebody who came before and me trying to measure, ‘What’s he done today?’ Constantly worrying about that is a strange thing to me. It shows me somebody who’s not focused on the American people and the job they’re supposed to do.”
Erum Salam is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW, with a focus on how global events and foreign policy shape U.S. politics. She previously was a breaking news reporter for The Guardian.
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