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Sherrod Campbell Brown ( ; born November 9, 1952) is an American politician who served from 2007 to 2025 as a United States senator from Ohio. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the U.S. representative for from 1993 to 2007 and the 47th secretary of state of Ohio from 1983 to 1991. He started his political career in 1975 as a state representative. Brown is widely regarded within the Democratic Party as a left-wing populist figure. He is the most recent Democrat to represent Ohio in the U.S. Senate.
A native of Mansfield, Ohio, Brown graduated from Yale University and Ohio State University. He was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2006, defeating two-term Republican incumbent Mike DeWine. He was reelected in 2012 and 2018. Throughout his tenure, Brown chaired the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs and served on the Committees on Finance, Veterans' Affairs, and Ethics.
Brown ran for reelection to a fourth term in 2024, but was defeated by Republican nominee and businessman Bernie Moreno. In August 2025, Brown announced he would be a candidate in the 2026 United States Senate special election in Ohio.
In 1974, Brown received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Russian studies from Yale University. While at Yale, he lived in Davenport College, and he campaigned for George McGovern during the 1972 presidential election. He went on to receive a Master of Arts degree in education and a Master of Public Administration degree from the Ohio State University at Columbus in 1979 and 1981, respectively. He taught at Ohio State University's Mansfield branch campus from 1979 to 1981.
In 2005, Brown led the Democratic effort to block the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). For many months, Brown worked as whip on the issue, securing Democratic "nay" votes and seeking Republican allies. After several delays, the House of Representatives finally voted on CAFTA after midnight on July 28, passing it by one vote.
Brown opposed an amendment to Ohio's constitution that banned same-sex marriage. He was also one of the few U.S. representatives to vote against the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996. "Roll Call vote, Defense of Marriage Act" clerk.house.gov. Retrieved August 29, 2011.
In April 2006, Brown, along with John Conyers, brought an action against George W. Bush and others, alleging violations of the Constitution in the passage of the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005. The case, Conyers v. Bush, was ultimately dismissed for lack of standing.
On November 7, 2006, Brown defeated DeWine, 56.2% to 43.8%.
The Washington Post reported that no candidate running for reelection (save Barack Obama) faced more opposition from outside groups in 2012 than Brown did. By April 2012, $5.1 million had been spent on television ads opposing him, according to data provided by a Senate Democratic campaign operative. The United States Chamber of Commerce spent $2.7 million. 60 Plus Association, a conservative group that opposes health care reform, spent another $1.4 million. Karl Rove's Crossroads GPS and the Concerned Women for America Legislative Action Committee also spent heavily in the race. In May 2012, Brown campaigned with The West Wing actor Martin Sheen.
On November 6, 2012, Brown held his seat, winning 50.7% of the vote to Mandel's 44.7%. Independent candidate Scott Rupert received 4.6% of the vote.
At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Brown proposed a bill that would let workers immediately receive paid sick days, allowing them to stay home and self-quarantine if feeling sick or in the event of any public health emergency. Brown argued this would help slow the spread of the virus in workplaces. He criticized Republicans for blocking the proposal but thought that the House would pass similar measures.
After President Donald Trump was impeached in December 2019, Brown voted to remove him from office. During the January 2020 impeachment trial, he supported Republicans bringing witnesses to testify, so long as testimony from witnesses such as National Security Advisor John Bolton was also allowed. Brown pushed for legislation in 2020 that would require the EPA to more strictly regulate perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances. He and other Democrats voted also to block two pieces of anti-abortion legislation.
Brown pushed Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in 2021 to establish the National Advanced Air Mobility Center of Excellence in Ohio.
He called in July 2024 for Joe Biden to withdraw from the 2024 United States presidential election.
In January 2025, Harvard Kennedy School announced that Brown would be a Spring 2025 Visiting Fellow, and in March 2025, he launched the Dignity of Work Institute. Brown wrote an op-ed in The New Republic in March 2025, claiming that "Democrats Must Become the Workers' Party Again" and a guest essay in The New York Times entitled "What Worries Me Most About Trump’s Failing Economy" in April.
On August 12, 2025, it was reported that Brown would run in the 2026 United States Senate special election in Ohio, likely challenging Republican incumbent Jon Husted. He officially announced his candidacy on August 18, 2025.
The Washington Monthly suggested in 2017 that Brown could unite the establishment and progressive wings of the Democratic Party as a presidential candidate in 2020. Cleveland.com reported in 2018 that he was "seriously" considering a presidential run. After winning his third Senate term in the 2018 election, he was considered a potential candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020 and began exploring a run in January 2019. He announced in March that he would not run for president and would instead remain a senator. During the 2016 campaign season, he also said he had no interest in being vice president.
In a 2017 issue of Dissent, Michael Kazin introduced an interview with Brown by praising him as "a politician ahead of his time" and "perhaps the most class-conscious Democrat in Washington." Brown told Kazin that many Ohioans think "people on the coasts look down on them" and blamed this notion on Fox News and The Wall Street Journal.
He praised West Virginia teachers who held a nine-day strike in early 2018.
In the wake of the Flint water crisis, Brown announced plans to introduce legislation to force the federal government to step in when cities and states fail to warn residents about lead-contaminated drinking water. He called for the federal government to give Ohio's school districts money to test for lead in drinking water.
Brown co-sponsored the single-payer Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act in 2006. He did not co-sponsor Senator Bernie Sanders's single-payer health plan, despite saying he has "always been supportive" of such a system. Brown said he was supporting his own plan, which would allow people 55 and older to public option Medicare.
Brown was one of six Democratic senators to introduce the American Miners Act of 2019, a bill to amend the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977 to swap funds in excess of the amount needed to meet existing obligations under the Abandoned Mine Land fund to the 1974 Pension Plan as part of an effort to prevent its insolvency as a result of coal company bankruptcies and the 2008 financial crisis. It also increased the Black Lung Disability Trust Fund tax and ensured that miners affected by the 2018 coal company bankruptcies would not lose their health insurance.
Brown was one of 20 senators to sign a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in 2018 urging him to reverse the rolling back of a policy that granted visas to same-sex partners of LGBTQ diplomats who had unions that were not recognized by their home countries, writing that too many places around the world have seen LGBTQ individuals "subjected to discrimination and unspeakable violence, and receive little or no protection from the law or local authorities" and that refusing to let LGBTQ diplomats bring their partners to the US would be equivalent of upholding "the discriminatory policies of many countries around the world."
In 2022, Brown voted for the Respect for Marriage Act, a piece of which codified same-sex marriage rights into federal law.
Brown and Representative Tim Ryan introduced legislation in 2015 that would give military veterans priority in scheduling classes in colleges, universities, and other post-secondary education programs.
Brown became the chair of the Banking Subcommittee on Economic Policy in 2021, after having been its Ranking member since 2015. In April of that year, he initiated an inquiry into "the implosion of Archegos Capital", an investment firm that lost billions of dollars amid accusations of fraud and insider trading.
Vice President Mike Pence criticized Brown for his 2018 vote against the Republican tax bill (the TCJA). Brown argued the bill overwhelmingly benefited wealthy individuals and corporations, with a much smaller impact on the middle class.
Brown voted for the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.
Brown called for tariffs to be imposed on imports from China in 2016 and praised Hillary Clinton's plan to enforce rules and trade laws and triple the enforcement budgets at the United States Department of Commerce and the International Trade Commission.
Brown opposes NAFTA, which he argues should be renegotiated to aid Ohio workers. He supported President Trump's decision in 2018 to impose tariffs on washing machine imports. He supported his first trade agreement in 2019, having never previously supported one in Congress. He voted against the North American Free Trade Agreement because he said it would send Ohioan jobs to Mexico, but supported a new trade agreement for the U.S., Mexico, and Canada after a "step toward a pro-worker trade policy, but it's not a perfect agreement".
Pressure from Brown and other congressional Democrats in 2023 led the Biden administration to abandon plans for the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework's trade component.
Brown voted in 2010 for the ratification of New START, a nuclear arms reduction treaty between the U.S. and the Russia obliging both countries to have no more than 1,550 strategic warheads and 700 launchers deployed during the next seven years, and providing for a continuation of on-site inspections that halted when START I expired the previous year. It was the first arms treaty with Russia in eight years.
Brown co-sponsored reaffirmations of the Taiwan Relations Act and the Six Assurances in regard to United States-Taiwan relations. Weeks after the 2014 Hong Kong class boycott campaign and Umbrella Movement broke out, demanding genuine universal suffrage among other goals, Brown (the chair of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China); co-chair Chris Smith; U.S. Senators Ben Cardin; Marco Rubio; Roger Wicker; Dianne Feinstein; and Jeff Merkley; and U.S. Representatives Nancy Pelosi, Dan Lipinski, and Frank Wolf introduced the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act, which would update the United States–Hong Kong Policy Act of 1992 and U.S. commitment to democratic development in Hong Kong.
co-sponsored an amendment to the budget in 2015 that was unanimously approved by the Senate and that would reimpose sanctions on Iran if Iran violated the terms of the interim or final agreement by advancing its nuclear program.
In advance of the UN Security Council resolution 2334 of 2016 condemning Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories, Brown signed an AIPAC-sponsored letter urging President Obama to veto "one-sided" resolutions against Israel. He voted against a controversial Israel Anti-Boycott Act initiated by Republicans in 2019 that would allow states to prohibit government agencies from contracting with organizations involved in the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.
Brown criticized U.S. support for Saudi Arabia's military campaign in Yemen in 2017, saying, "It's becoming increasingly clear that Saudi Arabia has been deliberately targeting civilian targets. And that's absolutely unacceptable". He voted that same year for the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, which placed sanctions on Iran, Russia, and North Korea. Brown, Bob Menendez, and Mark Warner wrote to the inspectors general of the State Department, Treasury Department, and intelligence community in 2018 that the Trump administration failed to fully comply with the provisions of the CAATSA and requested an investigation. He condemned that year the genocide of the Rohingya people minority in Myanmar and called for a stronger response to the crisis.
Brown was one of 12 senators to sign a letter to Trump in 2018 urging him not to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal on the grounds that "Iran could either remain in the agreement and seek to isolate the United States from our closest partners, or resume its nuclear activities" if the U.S. pulled out and that both possibilities "would be detrimental to our national security interests." He and 16 other members of Congress urged that year the U.S. to impose sanctions under the Global Magnitsky Act against Chinese officials responsible for human rights abuses against the Uyghurs Muslim minority in western China's Xinjiang region.
After Juan Guaidó was declared interim president of Venezuela by the National Assembly in 2019, Brown said the U.S. should "work with our allies and use economic, political and diplomatic leverage to help bring about free and fair elections, limit escalating tension, and ensure the safety of Americans on the ground", and called the Trump administration's suggestions of military intervention "reckless and irresponsible".
In 2024, Brown urged the Biden administration to recognize a "nonmilitarized" Palestine after the end of the Gaza war.
He called the Republican legislature in Ohio "lunatics" for introducing a concealed carry bill that would allow people to carry guns into airplane terminals (before security), police buildings, private airplanes, and day-care facilities.
In the wake of the Orlando nightclub shooting, Brown participated in the Chris Murphy gun control filibuster. A few weeks later, he voted for the Feinstein Amendment, which would have barred anyone on the terrorist watch list from buying a gun.
In response to the 2017 Las Vegas shooting, he supported Dianne Feinstein's effort to ban .
Recchie and Cleveland Plain Dealer columnist Connie Schultz later became friends and filmed an ad together for Brown's 2006 Senate campaign. Recchie hosted a fund-raising event for Brown's 2012 reelection campaign against Republican Josh Mandel and issued a statement saying, "I understand that in campaigns you often have to go after your opponent, but Josh Mandel should know better than to go after our family. I ask that he immediately put a stop to this kind of politics. I was proud to support Sherrod in 2006 and I'm proud to support him again this time around against Josh Mandel. Josh Mandel should immediately stop this kind of dirty campaigning."
In 2004, Brown married Schultz. She resigned from her job in 2011, because being a politician's spouse presented a conflict of interest. She won a Pulitzer Prize in 2005. She is also the author of Life Happens (2007) and ...and His Lovely Wife (2008), in which she describes her experiences as the spouse of a U.S. Senate candidate. He has two stepchildren from this marriage.
Brown's daughter Elizabeth was president pro tempore of the Columbus City Council and served on the council for seven years. He has five grandchildren. He is Lutheran. Brown's brother, Charlie, is a former West Virginia attorney general.
In 2007, Brown was awarded an honorary doctorate from Capital University. He was awarded an honorary doctor of public service degree from Otterbein University in 2014. Along with his wife, Brown delivered a keynote address at the undergraduate commencement.
In June 2023, NBC News reported that Brown had been late paying his Cleveland property tax bill seven times, most recently in February, and that for years he claimed owner-occupant tax credits on properties in two different Ohio counties. Brown subsequently paid the delinquent tax bill and repaid Franklin County for the tax credit. His campaign said he would not claim it in future years. In August 2023, Brown corrected several years of Senate financial disclosure forms that had previously omitted his wife's pension money.
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