Brown raises close to $31M in competitive Ohio Senate race

Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown’s (D) campaign will report raising nearly $31 million in the third quarter of the year, a record-breaking sum for one of the most critical Senate races in the country this year. 

Brown’s campaign said in a release Wednesday that it brought in $30.6 million, the most ever in a quarter for an Ohio Senate candidate. The amount is a big jump from the roughly $13 million he raised in the second quarter. 

“Sherrod has a proven track record fighting for Ohioans, whether it’s fighting for a woman’s right to make her own health care decisions or saving the pensions of over 100,000 Ohio workers — and that’s why he has unprecedented momentum going into the final month of this campaign,” Brown’s campaign manager Rachel Petri said in the release. 

“Sherrod and Connie are grateful to every supporter and volunteer working to make sure Sherrod can keep fighting for all Ohioans,” Petri added, referring to Brown’s wife. 

A three-term incumbent, Brown is seeking another term in one of the most hotly contested races in the country. He is running against Republican Bernie Moreno. 

Democrats currently have a narrow 51-49 majority in the Senate, and Republicans are already highly likely to pick up at least one seat in West Virginia to further narrow the gap. That makes Brown’s seat key for determining which party will have a majority in the Senate during the next session of Congress. 

Brown is one of two incumbent Democrats running in increasingly Republican-leaning states that will likely vote for former President Trump in November, along with Sen. Jon Tester in Montana. 

But Brown has been performing decently well in polling against Moreno, with many surveys showing him ahead by a few points. But the race has tightened in recent weeks, and he leads by about a point and a half in the average from The Hill/Decision Desk HQ. 

Brown has also built up a significant fundraising advantage against Moreno, raising a few times as much as the Republican candidate in the second quarter. 

But the race will likely be razor-tight regardless with both parties focusing their attention on it. 

Moreno’s campaign has yet to announce its fundraising numbers for the third quarter, the last before the election.