News that former Sen. Sherrod Brown intends to enter the 2026 race to regain a Senate seat in Ohio is just the kind of development that the Democratic Party sorely needs. With polls showing approval of their party at historic lows, and that it is bleeding support from working-class voters, Brown promises a return to the pragmatic liberalism that once made the Democrats this country’s home for blue-collar voters.
Welcome back, Sherrod.
Brown is a longtime proponent of what he calls the “dignity of work.” And stylistically, he is the polar opposite of New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani.
Since he won his party primary, Mamdani — educated at an elite liberal arts college and a self-described Democratic socialist — has become a news media darling and lightning rod for Republicans eager to paint Democrats as radical left lunatics, out of touch with the American mainstream. Mamdani, whose website notes that he “co-found(ed) his college’s first Students for Justice in Palestine chapter,” has leaned into that caricature.
His campaign promises city-owned grocery stores, “free public buses, universal child care, new affordable housing, and a higher minimum wage — all to be funded through a 2 percent tax on the top 1 percent of earners.” And it doesn’t help that he was initially reluctant to denounce the anti-Zionist catch phrase, “Globalize the Intifada.”
Yet Mamdani succeeded by energizing young voters and bringing new voters to the polls.
Brown, who graduated from Yale, displays none of the polish or easy cosmopolitanism associated with an Ivy League education. His gravelly voice, down-to-earth manner, and rumpled appearance suggest that he is more comfortable in bowling alleys and union halls than in the company of New York socialites.
More importantly, Brown understands and speaks to the grievances of working-class Americans of all races. He embraces a populist agenda, without the hard edge of anger that often comes with it.
The more America sees of him, the better it will be for the Democratic Party.
During his three terms in the Senate, Brown was a workers’ rights champion. That is why he earned a 4 percent rating from the ultra-conservative political action group Heritage Action for America and a 100 percent rating from the AFL-CIO national labor union.
Despite this record, he lost his bid for re-election in 2024 to Trump-backed candidate Bernie Moreno by 4 percent of the vote. He could not overcome the red wave that swept Ohio.
After the election, Brown offered the following diagnosis of the problems of the Democratic Party. “I’ve seen [an] erosion of American jobs, and I’ve seen the middle class shrink. People have to blame someone. And it’s been Democrats.” For emphasis, he added, “At this point, this has been 30 years since NAFTA of the Democrats drifting away from workers.”
Now, he argues Democrats need to focus on “the dignity of work and show up at picket lines and go to union halls and listen to workers and tell stories about how unions have changed people’s lives for the better.”
Brown makes a compelling case that the dignity of work should be at the center of the Democratic Party agenda. In his view, it is one thing that Americans have in common. He knows that the party cannot recover if it does not speak to the broadest swath of voters in a language that they recognize and understand. Promises of “free” stuff won’t go over well in communities where working people take pride, justified or not, in earning everything they have gotten.
He is not shy about calling out rising corporate profits and executive salaries at a time when wages “are largely flat, and the cost of living keeps getting more expensive.” He recognizes that “We have an economy today that does not reward work and does not value the work of Americans without four-year college degrees.”
Brown’s vision for the Democratic Party begins with an acknowledgement of those facts. And he is telling his colleagues that they cannot win if they are seen as the party of the status quo.
Or, if they are the party of the coastal elites.
There is much to admire in what Mamdani did in his New York City campaign, and he sure looks like the kind of new voice that Democrats need. But for people between the coasts, the Mamdani phenomenon may seem to be just the latest twist in the political tastes of coastal elites.
That’s why the Democrats also need Sherrod Brown. Whether or not he can win in Ohio, his campaign will offer a vision for a Democratic Party looking to compete beyond the coasts and its current wealthy, well-educated base.
Austin Sarat is the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science at Amherst College.
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