Republican U.S. Sen. Jon Husted and his Democratic challenger Sherrod Brown say their connections to the Mahoning Valley make them the best candidate to serve the area.

Husted, appointed to the Senate in January 2025 after serving as lieutenant governor, said he’s focused his career on “the stuff that matters to people (in the Mahoning Valley) — jobs, infrastructure. I have been involved with the Mahoning County Career (& Technical) Center expansion and the additive manufacturing movement in the Mahoning Valley and the businesses that create jobs. I also have the same values as people there.”

Husted added: “They’re for us, and we will win. But I never take them for granted. I will work to earn every vote.”

Husted points to earning the endorsement of the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 66, which represents the Mahoning Valley, over Brown. The union endorsed Brown in 2024.

Husted said: “This time they’re endorsing me. Why is that? It’s because I’ve worked with them over time to build infrastructure when I was lieutenant governor and in the Legislature.”

Brown, a former three-term senator who lost to Republican Bernie Moreno in 2024, said: “The fact that you saw me almost once a month for 18 years, I have a rapport with the Valley (that’s) unusual for a politician in either party that doesn’t live there. I would not assume, because I’m going to earn it, that many, many of those voters are coming back.”

During the 2024 election, Brown lost Mahoning County by 0.2 of a percent and lost Trumbull County by 5.71% — the first time he was defeated in either county. The two formerly longtime Democratic strongholds have become significantly more Republican since President Donald Trump first ran for president in 2016. Unlike in 2024, Brown won’t have to run with Trump at the top of the ticket.

Husted said the counties rejected Brown because “he’s been in Washington for 32 years and the people of the Mahoning Valley didn’t see him do anything. That’s why he’s starting to lose there.”

The senator said Brown doesn’t share the same values as those in the Valley, such as “closing the border down” and “eliminating men from women’s sports.”

Brown said Valley voters will back him “because I’ve taken on special interests my whole career and I fought against bad trade agreements, stood up to presidents of both parties, I’ve always taken on those interest groups, not just trade agreements, but the banks and utility companies and the drug companies. The people in the Valley understand that the system is rigged. It’s gotten worse in the last year. Jon Husted is part of that where he’s fronted for the drug companies and Wall Street and the oil companies and especially the electric utilities, and that contrast is very clear.”

Gov. Mike DeWine appointed Husted, his lieutenant governor, to the Senate in January 2025 to replace JD Vance, who resigned to become vice president. This year’s election will be for the remainder of that term with an election in 2028 for a full six-year term.

While Brown and Husted agree that trade deals have harmed the Mahoning Valley, they have differing views on Trump’s tariffs and plans to impose additional ones.

“There’s no place in Ohio that’s been harmed more by bad trade policies than the Mahoning Valley — no place,” Husted said. “It’s killed jobs because the people who came before Donald Trump cut bad deals, didn’t enforce the trade deals that we had and it killed manufacturing jobs in America and there’s no place that’s felt that more than the Mahoning Valley. So the idea that we are engaging in negotiations across the globe to make sure that America gets fairer treatment on our trade policy is a good thing.”

Husted said with China having major leverage over the United States in trade, “it should be a wake-up call to everyone that the America First policy is a good policy and we need to use every leverage, including tariffs, to do more made in America to reestablish a domestic supply chain for things that are essential to our economic and national security. When we do that that will mean more jobs in America, more made in America, more made in Ohio and there will be no place that will benefit more from that than the Mahoning Valley.”

Husted referred to tariffs as “a tool in the tool box to have leverage to force more companies to make things in America. Tariffs are part of the discussion.”

Brown said: “I’ve never heard Husted speak out against a trade agreement until Trump told him to. I have a career of speaking out against bad trade agreements. I don’t think that tariffs are automatically bad policy and I’ve gone to the International Trade Commission in support of tariffs that are narrow, reliable and with an end, short-term on steel and appliances. What Husted has signed off on is tariffs aimed at farmers, tariffs that could cost Mahoning Valley farmers, particularly in northern Trumbull County.”

Brown said that Trump’s “reckless application of tariffs (have) cost us our exports, cost us our jobs and cost us inflation.” He referred to tariffs on Canadian goods as “just insanely stupid.”

Brown said Trump’s tariffs have caused inflation and job losses.

“This reckless, unpredictable tariff policy that Husted supported, that’s a clear distinction,” he said.