Former Senator Sherrod Brown’s comeback in the Ohio Senate race could be complicated by socialist candidate Greg Levy, who is making a play to win over progressive voters in the critical battleground.
Brown, a Democrat, is challenging Republican Senator Jon Husted in what has become one of the most competitive races of the midterms. Polls point to a close contest in the Buckeye State, despite its rightward drift over the past decade, as President Donald Trump’s declining approval rating fuels a political environment seen as more favorable to the Democrats.
As Democrats hope 2026 could be the year they flip back Ohio, they will need to contend with the Party for Socialism and Liberation running Levy as a candidate who could win over some progressive voters. Those progressives could be critical to Brown building a victorious coalition in the November 3 election.
Levy’s campaign recently garnered attention after mailers promoting his campaign were sent out by the Enough Promises Ohio PAC, which the Associated Press reported has ties to Republican groups.
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The mailers, Levy wrote in a post to X, were “falsely impersonating” his campaign, which has “no ties” to the groups circulating them.
“There is a well established record of both Republican and Democratic Party operatives using their financial resources to try and trick voters,” he wrote. “This is a highly undemocratic practice and does a disservice to voters in Ohio and throughout the country.”
But the mailers underscore how his candidacy could impact the race. The concern for Democrats would be that if the race is as close as it is expected to be, even a slim progressive revolt could make a difference when the votes are counted. While Levy is not receiving much support in the polls, Ohio is seen as a toss-up that could be decided by a razor-thin margin.
Paul Beck, professor emeritus and academy professor of political science at Ohio State University, told Newsweek this could matter if the race proves to be particularly close.
“In a very close contest, any lost votes to Brown could matter,” he said.
Still, he noted that third party candidates “tend to do worse in voting as the election nears, with voters not wanting to waste their votes.”
Levy “would be a far more serious threat in the governor's race, where [Democratic gubernatorial candidate] Amy Acton has been tacking to the right,” David Niven, professor at the University of Cincinnati's School of Public and International Affairs, told Newsweek.
He said that Brown doesn’t have an issue with the left flank of the Democratic Party.
“Brown is an old-school jobs and prosperity candidate,” he said. “He's really not the ideal target for a problems of the working class attack.”
Newsweek reached out to Brown's campaign for comment via email.
Levy told Newsweek that he was “called on to represent our socialist program” after his party “decided it was time for bold intervention” and to run in Ohio.
“We set out to make socialism a topic at every Ohioan’s dinner table, to organize working-class people for a socialist reconstruction of society, and build a movement beyond the ballot box,” Levy wrote in a statement.
He said priorities include cutting the Pentagon budget by 90 percent, seizing the top 100 corporations to “place them under democratic worker control,” ending “the war on Black America,” putting police under community control and the abolition of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
He said he is “clearly different” from Brown, who he said “represents the same tired political interests of the billionaire class that have thrown Ohio workers further into poverty, war, and the racist prison system.”
“This campaign is for all workers who want a better future, where they control power themselves, not the billionaires,” he said.
Levy's campaign is “not cavalier about the right-wing agenda of Trump,” but believes there is “no basis whatsoever that Democrats will at all change the trajectory of this turn towards eviscerating the gains won in the labor and civil rights struggles.”
After the Ohio primaries in May, Levy called on Brown to drop out of the race, saying that the former senator has “refused to meet the moment” on issues like abolishing ICE, foreign policy and health care.
“If Brown is serious about defeating the right wing, he should stop standing in the way of a real progressive campaign,” he said.
Greg Levy’s Polling Against Sherrod Brown and Jon Husted
One recent poll highlighted the challenge facing Brown and Democrats in Ohio.
The co/efficient poll gave Husted a single-digit lead over Brown, 44 percent to 43 percent, while Levy received 3 percent support in the survey. Only one percent of respondents said they would vote for libertarian William Redpath.
The poll surveyed 925 likely voters from October 5 to 6, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.49 percentage points.
Other polling, however, has indicated Levy might not necessarily be taking away a significant number of votes from Brown.
Less than half a percent of voters said they would vote for a third party candidate in a poll from The New York Times and Siena University, which gave Brown a 3-point lead over Husted, 49 percent to 46 percent, among a sample of 616 likely voters.
It was conducted from September 22 to October 1, with a margin of error of plus or minus 4.5 percentage points.
A CNN poll showed a similar narrative—Brown led Husted by 6 points, 49 percent to 43 percent, among 760 likely voters from September 29 to October 5. Only 2 percent said they would vote for another candidate. It had a margin of error of plus or minus 4.5 percentage points.
A Suffolk University poll found that only 1 percent of Ohioans plan to vote for Levy, while Brown led with 47 percent support to Husted’s 44 percent. It surveyed 500 likely voters from September 23 to 27, with a margin of error of 4.4 percentage points.
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Ohio’s Race to the Right
Ohio was one of the most important battleground states in the 2000s and early 2010s, but it has since shifted rightward in the Trump era. Although former President Barack Obama won the state in 2008 and 2012, Trump won it in all three of his campaigns, including by 11 points in 2024, the largest Republican margin in decades.
That trend has been driven by Trump’s inroads with white working-class voters who were previously more politically mixed. His gains came from rural counties as well as the northeastern region near Cleveland. At the same time, Democrats gained some ground in Cincinnati and Columbus suburbs, but not quite enough to offset Republicans' momentum in the rural areas.
The midterms present Democrats with a major test as to whether they can reverse the decade-long trend.
Brown himself is a rare Democrat who was able to win Ohio in the Trump era—he won reelection in 2018, the last time there was a “blue wave” election. But he ended up losing to Republican Bernie Moreno in 2024 in a more challenging year for the party.
Why Ohio Senate Race Matters in the 2026 Midterms
The Ohio Senate race is among a handful of toss-ups that could determine the balance of power in the Senate. Republicans hold a 53-47 majority. Democrats must flip four seats to win a majority, as Vice President JD Vance would serve as the tiebreaker in a 50-50 Senate.
Democrats need to flip two seats in states that Trump won by double digits in the 2024 election to secure a majority, and Ohio is viewed as one of those states that could potentially flip to Democrats this year.
If Democrats win Ohio, their path to winning a Senate majority becomes more feasible. But if Husted wins, that means they would need to win in some of those other states to regain control of the upper chamber.
What Happens Next
The Ohio U.S. Senate race will continue to be watched as one of the most competitive of the 2026 midterm elections. Forecasters like the Cook Political Report and Sabato’s Crystal Ball classify the race as a toss-up. Early voting is already underway in the state.
Newsweek’s reporters and editors used Martyn, our AI assistant, to produce this story. Learn more about Martyn here. Contact Newsweek editors for this story: Jason Lemon and Anthony Murray.