Sherrod Brown's donations outpace Jon Husted's
Former Senator raises twice as much as incumbent in Q2
By Siddarth Sivaraman
Ohio Capital Journal
COLUMBUS — Ohio Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate Sherrod Brown raised more than twice as much as incumbent Republican U.S. Senator Jon Husted from April to June, according to campaign finance filings from both campaigns.
Congressional candidates must file several financial disclosures throughout the year of their election. Reports for the second quarter of 2026 were due July 15.
Ohio Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate Sherrod Brown raised more than twice as much as incumbent Republican U.S. Senator Jon Husted from April to June, according to campaign finance filings from both campaigns.
Congressional candidates must file several financial disclosures throughout the year of their election. Reports for the second quarter of 2026 were due July 15.
Brown’s campaign announced $14.1 million in direct second-quarter donations, with an added $3 million coming from an affiliated PAC. Husted’s campaign reported $3.4 million in direct donations and $4.3 million from three affiliated PACs.
“Ohioans across the state are fed up with Jon Husted, who repeatedly puts corporations, billionaires, and special interests first at the expense of hard working families,” said Patrick Eisenhauer, Brown’s campaign manager.
In a press release, the Husted campaign touted its performance as the largest second-quarter fundraising total ever posted by an Ohio Republican U.S. Senate candidate.
This is the third straight U.S. Senate election in Ohio where the Democratic nominee’s early summer fundraising haul was significantly larger than his Republican opponent. Former Ohio U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan outraised now-Vice President J.D. Vance by $6.8 million from April to June 2022, and Brown outraised now-U.S. Sen. Bernie Moreno by $6 million from April to June 2024.
Both elections ended in Democratic losses at the ballot box. The 2024 race became the most expensive non-presidential election in American history, and while Brown more than tripled Moreno’s campaign spending, Republican groups still outspent Democratic groups by over $75 million
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A recent U.S. Supreme Court decision will also strengthen the role of political parties to help campaigns this election cycle. Ruling on a case out of Ohio brought by Vance, in a 6-3 decision the court struck down limits on how much political parties could spend in coordination with specific candidates.
Spending
This time around, Brown spent over $11.5 million on advertising in the second quarter. Some in-house ads touted his positions on healthcare and Congressional stock trading, and three ads sought to tie Husted to late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Brown also released a trio of ads on data centers in July.
While Brown raised about $4.3 million more than he did in the second quarter of 2024, he was also more frugal, spending over $2.5 million less on advertising. The former three-term senator reported $16.2 million cash on hand at the end of June.
Meanwhile, Husted’s campaign bought more than five times Moreno’s ad spending over the same period in 2024. His principal committee, Husted for Senate, paid for his first television ad of the cycle in late April. A pair of May ads attacking Brown’s Congressional record came from Husted Victory, a secondary committee.
His campaign reported over $11 million cash on hand, more than double Moreno’s cash balance in June 2024.
The two campaigns are far from the only groups with money in Ohio’s U.S. Senate race. Outside groups have already committed to spend over $174 million in the race, and AdImpact projects total spending to reach $749 million by Election Day.
The Republican-backed Senate Leadership Fund has already spent $700,000 in the race this year, and it plans to spend $79 million in total. Democratic-backed Senate Majority PAC has committed $64 million to the race.
Most of the outside spending in the second quarter came from two Republican super PACs. Americans for Prosperity Action, Inc., a super PAC bankrolled by Republican megadonor Charles Koch, spent over $3.1 million starting in April.
Ohio Flyer PAC paid over $445,000 for its April “Party’s Over” ad targeting Brown’s Congressional record, part of over $1.6 million in second-quarter ad spending. The super PAC is solely dedicated to supporting Husted’s election bid, and its name references Husted’s time on the University of Dayton’s football team.
Fundraising
Ohio Flyer PAC received its largest donation of the second quarter from A Public Voice, Inc., a Virginia-based dark money group that has given millions to Republican super PACs in past elections.
Nonprofits like A Public Voice, Inc., do not have to disclose their donors. A Public Voice, Inc. has history in Ohio U.S. Senate races: It gave $315,000 to a super PAC that opposed Brown in 2018, and it donated $850,000 to a super PAC backing Republican state Sen. Jane Timken’s primary run in 2022.
Brian Colleran, the CEO of an Ohio nursing home chain, and Chevron also gave Ohio Flyer PAC six-figure donations. A super PAC can raise and spend unlimited amounts of money, but it cannot directly coordinate with a candidate’s campaign committee.
Husted’s campaign received its largest donations of the second quarter, including a combined $637,200 from two Jane Street Capital executives, through Husted Victory. Jane Street, a quantitative trading firm, has made a recent push into artificial intelligence and data centers.
His campaign also accepted a total of $69,750 in smaller donations from the political action committees of utility companies like American Electric Power and Duke Energy, as well as tech companies like Oracle and Meta.
Other prominent Husted donors include Cleveland Browns owners Jimmy and Dee Haslam, who regularly donate to Republican campaigns. Cleveland Browns executives and members of the Haslam family gave Husted a combined $292,000 in the second quarter.
Only one person gave more than $50,000 to a committee affiliated with Brown’s campaign in the second quarter: Joe Kanfer, the former CEO of an Akron-based company that produces Purell hand sanitizer. Brown received most of his largest individual donations through Ohio Grassroots Victory Fund, an affiliated committee.
James McClave, another Jane Street trader who gave millions to a dark money group that supported former President Joe Biden in 2024, donated $7,000 to Brown’s campaign committee.
McClave was also an early investor in artificial intelligence giant Anthropic, which is spending millions in favor of AI regulation. Anthropic’s general legal counsel, Jeff Bleich, gave $20,500 to Brown’s campaign committees in the second quarter.
Brown reported over $5.1 million in donations through the Democratic fundraising platform ActBlue, and Husted reported $500,000 from the Republican equivalent WinRed. The former senator had over 135,000 donors in Q2, including nearly 70,000 first-time donors, according to a press release.
The next campaign finance reporting deadline for Congressional candidates will be Oct. 15
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