Twenty years after his opposition to the Iraq War helped elect him to the U.S. Senate, Sherrod Brown is making another Middle East conflict central to his attempt at a political comeback.
Brown, who’s challenging Republican U.S. Sen. Jon Husted this November after losing his Senate seat in November 2024, railed against the ongoing war in Iran at a recent campaign stop at a brewery in suburban Columbus.
In a 10-minute speech delivered to dozens of people sitting at picnic tables and bar stools, Brown barely mentioned President Donald Trump, who, along with Israel, launched air strikes in February. Instead, he railed against Republican Sen. Jon Husted, Brown’s opponent in the November election, for either describing the war positively or voting against efforts to immediately end it.
“Ohio taxpayers have already spent a billion dollars on this war,” Brown said. “That’s money we’re not spending on schools, money we’re not spending on roads. It’s money we’re not spending on public health. It’s money we’re not spending on keeping our rivers and our streams and our lakes clean.”
Brown has made similar points on social media. In a May 22 post on X, Brown tied the Iran war to rising pressure on farmers.
Besides the details – such as the name of the invaded country — Brown’s talking points sound like they could have been delivered in the 2000s.
As a U.S House member in 2003, Brown regularly took to reading anti-war letters from constituents from the U.S. House floor. The year before, Brown had voted against authorizing then-President George W. Bush to invade Iraq.
“Bring back the troops… Spend the $87 billion and more at home for schools, health care, basic infrastructure,” Brown said in one October 2003 speech, quoting one constituent letter. “Take care of the people at home.”
While he challenged the Repuublican’s then-Sen. Mike DeWine in the 2006 election, Brown also framed the Iraq War as being at the expense of domestic priorities.
There was a twist though – Brown said the money spent in Iraq instead could have been spent on hardening Ohio infrastructure against terrorist attacks, reflecting a major preoccupation and a potential vulnerability for Democrats at the time.
Polling shows parallels between 2026 and 2006
National polling has shown the Iran war is unpopular, with a national poll by YouGov taken from May 29-June 1 finding only 29% support how Trump is handling the situation there.
If those numbers hold, they are comparable to polling late in the 2006 election that saw Brown elected to the Senate in the first place. A New York Times / ABC News poll released on Nov. 1, 2006, found 29% approval for then-President George W. Bush’s handling of the Iraq War.
Notably, the new poll also shows how Trump’s decision to attack Iran has divided his own voters after campaigning on an America First platform, which includes staying out of regional conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere. The poll says 25% of 2024 Trump voters said they opposed the president’s handling of the war while 55% said they want the war to end as quickly as possible.
In response to a question from Signal Statewide following the brewery event, Brown declined to say whether he personally sees parallels in public sentiment between 2006 and 2026. But, he said voters are angry.
“People are mad about everything,” Brown said. “They’re mad about prices. They’re mad about this war. They’re mad about tax cuts for the rich and cuts in health care, they see a government that’s betrayed them.”
Husted: The public “understands how complex this is”
In early public comments, Husted described the war as going “much better than anybody thought it would” shortly after it began. He’s also described how the resulting spike in gas prices has been hard on everyday Ohioans.
And the war has dragged on, Husted has described the challenge as twofold: trying to ensure the Trump Administration achieves its main justification for launching the war by removing Iran’s ability to develop a nuclear weapon, while reopening oil shipments in the Persian Gulf disrupted by the conflict.
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In an interview with Signal Statewide this week, Husted made the case that the public sees nuance in the issue.
“I think they want the Strait of Hormuz open,” Husted said, referencing the body of water that Iran has blocked since the war’s start, causing worldwide oil prices to spike and choking shipments of other goods as well. “They want gas prices down. But they also want to make sure that Iran does not become a nuclear threat.”
Husted portrays the voter sentiment as “They want us to do both… and those can be accomplished.”
For months, Husted has said he expects the war in Iran to be “brief and successful,” and he’s said he regularly shares that view with the Trump Administration.
In his conversation with Signal Statewide, Husted wouldn’t say at what point the war will have dragged on for too long, or if he thinks it’s close to ending.
“I know that I know that that’s what they’re trying to accomplish on a daily basis, hourly, minute, minute to minute basis,” Husted said. “The challenge for Iran is that they’re not of one mind. Their leaders are hiding in bunkers underground. It’s not easy to have negotiations with people like that.”
Husted also would not address how the war may affect this year’s election. Instead, he tried to argue that Brown shares blame for Iran’s status as a sponsor of proxy groups like Hezbollah that have attacked U.S. military and civilian targets. He also criticized Brown for supporting anti-climate change policies that he said have driven up electricity prices.
“Sherrod Brown was here for 32 years, he didn’t address these issues. Iran became a bigger sponsor of state terrorism during his time in Congress,” Husted said.
“I believe that Ohioans understand all that,” Husted added. “Every time I have a conversation with a constituent, they definitely understand how complex it is.”
