The 2024 elections won't just be about defeating President Joe Biden and keeping control of the House, but about potentially winning back the Senate. It's a particularly favorable map for Republicans this time around, as many of the seats Democrats are defending involve vulnerable incumbents. One race, if not the race to watch is Ohio, where Sen. Sherrod Brown is running for reelection. So far, two Republican candidates have entered the race, though they're almost certainly not the only ones who will be on the ballot come next year's primary.
While Ohio may have gotten increasingly redder and is a particularly Trump-friendly state, there are challenges to beating an incumbent. Tom Zawistowski, president of the tea party-affiliated We the People Convention, thus believes name identification is the key to win, and that the candidate who best has that would be Secretary of State Frank LaRose.
"You have Frank LaRose, who's our secretary of state, who has won state races twice, who will probably have the least money, but he has name recognition of like 85%," Zawistowski told American Family News. "The odds are that the only person who could beat Sherrod Brown is Frank LaRose."
The latest is that LaRose has given a timetable of "mid-to-late" summer, according to local news outlet WLWT, which would bring us to a few weeks or months from now. NBC News also reported earlier this month he's expected to announce "soon." LaRose won reelection last November by beating Democrat Chelsea Clark by 20 points, and touted that he was the only sitting secretary of state to be endorsed by former and potentially future President Donald Trump.
Speaking of Trump endorsements, though, the candidate in the race who might earn that has declared, businessman Bernie Moreno. He also already has the endorsement of Sen. JD Vance (R-OH) who won last year's primary to replace retiring then-Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) after Trump's endorsement, and ultimately the election against former Rep. Tim Ryan (D-OH).
Moreno's son-in-law is Rep. Max Miller (R-OH), who had been endorsed by Trump, and Trump has said positive things about Moreno as well, like he did in a TruthSocial post around the time Moreno was getting into the race.
Zawistowski noted how that may not be enough though. "You've got Bernie Moreno, who's got lots of money and has kind of a pseudo Trump endorsement, but not really," Zawistowski offered. "He ran last time and dropped out, but he's got a name ID of like 9%. We've got [state Sen.] Matt Dolan, who's from a famous Ohio family. He's been a state senator, and he ran last year. He still only has like 15% name recognition."
Dolan does have money. But, not only does he have such little name recognition, he is the Republican who claimed want to "move on" from Trump, though the former and potentially future president still remains a relevant figure in Ohio, where Trump won the state in 2016 and 2020 by about 8 points. Dolan announced in January.
It's not just Zawistowski who has mentioned LaRose as a worthy candidate. FiveThirtyEight's Alex Samuels, Geoffrey Skelley, and Nathaniel Rakich in March discussed his possible candidacy.
As Skelley mentioned when discussing how Dolan was the only one in the race, "some major officeholders in Ohio are also eyeing this race, and they’re the ones to watch, especially Secretary of State Frank LaRose, who could be the toughest opponent Brown has faced since first defeating Mike DeWine for this seat in 2006 (DeWine was a senator back then; now he’s governor)." He also mentioned that "while Brown also won in 2018, he faced a very weak Republican opponent in then-Rep. Jim Renacci. So Brown may not be quite as much of an outperformer as some think."
Rakich referred to Ohio as one of "Republicans' best pickup opportunities," as well as West Virginia and Montana. While Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) has not yet announced his intentions and won't for some time, Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT) is indeed running for reelection.
Samuels, Skelley, and Rakich are not alone. A POLITICO report from February noted that "2024’s sprawling Senate map comes down to these 3 Dems," referring to Ohio, West Virginia, and Montana.
Brown is mentioned as being more than fine being associated with Biden:
Even in Ohio, Brown said he’d “assume” he’ll campaign with Biden even if the president is unlikely to consider his state a must-win.
“I run my own race, and my own brand. So, I’m not going to run from Biden,” Brown said. “He’s also delivered more than any president in recent history.”
That's a curious plan of Brown's, since Biden's approval rating is at 34 percent in Ohio while 58 percent disapprove of the job he is doing.
The Hill and Roll Call both regard Brown as vulnerable with Ohio being seen as a pick-up.
Political consultant Shane West wrote in a piece for the Associate of Mature American Citizens (AMAC) bearing the headline of "The Most Important Senate Race in 2024," referring to Ohio. As he put it, "with the primary still nearly a year away and the field far from set, the race is only just beginning to heat up."
Both Cook Political Report and Sabato's Crystal Ball consider the Ohio Senate race to be a "Toss-Up," while Inside Elections considers it a "Battleground Democratic" race.
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