Sen. Jon Husted wants voters to know that President Donald Trump has endorsed him.
That’s the gist of a new 15-second social media ad from Husted, the first from Husted’s campaign ahead of the November 2026 election.
The ad, which launched this week, opens and closes with a banner proclaiming Trump’s endorsement. Sandwiched in the middle is an image of the post the president made on his Truth Social platform endorsing Husted last April.
“Ohio needs conservative champion Jon Husted in the U.S. Senate,” the deep-voiced narrator says in the ad’s closing.
The takeaway isn’t subtle: Husted, like other Ohio GOP politicians in recent years, thinks he can win by consolidating the Trump vote next year. In Ohio’s previous political era, candidates were more likely to emphasize their independence. Husted’s new ad ties him closely to the president, who won Ohio in 2016, 2020 and 2024. But as a social-media buy, it’s almost certainly targeting Trump supporters rather than a broader audience.
In contrast, Husted’s Democratic challenger, former Sen. Sherrod Brown, didn’t mention Trump’s name in the opening digital ad Brown’s campaign launched last week.
That ad instead directly criticizes Husted, blaming him for rising prices for staples like coffee, beef and, in a nod to the Thanksgiving holiday, turkey. “And what’s Jon Husted doing about it? Absolutely nothing,” Brown says.
Husted’s ad will air through Election Day, according to his campaign, which says it will spend around $36,000 to promote it.
Husted has served in the U.S. Senate since January, after Gov. Mike DeWine appointed him to fill the rest of Vice President JD Vance’s term. Before that, Husted had served as DeWine’s lieutenant governor since 2019.