Nick Morris said about Jon Husted, in Elections Daily on October 30, 2026.
Reviewing the Ohio special Senate election in a final battleground overview.
Jon Husted
Things People Say About Jon Husted
Jon Husted is a Republican U.S. senator from Ohio, appointed by Gov. Mike DeWine to the seat JD Vance left to become vice president. He previously served as Ohio's lieutenant governor and was the Republican candidate in the 2026 special election.
What People Say About Them
Alex Shultz said about Jon Husted, in Hard Reset on October 30, 2026.
Alex Shultz of Hard Reset, in an October 29, 2026 newsletter previewing midterm races with heavy tech-industry spending, on Ohio's Senate contest between Jon Husted and Sherrod Brown. He added that it was not yet clear whether the tactic was swaying voters.
Jessica Anderson said about Jon Husted, in The Truth with Lisa Boothe on October 29, 2026.
Jessica Anderson, president of the Sentinel Action Fund, a Republican get-out-the-vote group, on The Truth with Lisa Boothe, October 29, 2026. She was reading Ohio early-vote modeling in the Senate race between Jon Husted and Sherrod Brown.
The Truth with Lisa Boothe
Around 07:19 into the episode
Jessica Anderson
…heard. The president is barnstorming the country, getting his people out. So the election is not over. All of these big Senate battleground races are still winnable by Republicans. And I think that is really important. And that speaks to how tight these races actually are from a numbers standpoint.
Lisa Boothe
…like writ large or... You know, can we, you know, obviously it's not election day, things can change. But like in looking at the data and some of these returns, are there any lessons to learn where we are now? Or like, I guess, how would you read that? Because that's kind of a confusing electorate.
Jessica Anderson
…takes into consideration public sentiment to then try to estimate, okay, of these 1.2 million ballots that have been returned, we think about 41% are GOP, 43% Dem, about 15% Independent. When you cross that with, okay, are they likely Husted, likely Brown, that's where it gets interesting and you actually see more Independence in Ohio breaking for Brown, which is not good for Republicans. So Husted is going to have to backfill on election day and with the remaining days of early vote through Sunday, he's going to have to backfill with base Republicans to overcome the independent movement likely to brown. So that's weird, right? Because it's a red state where independents are not being persuaded to to vote for the status quo. They're breaking against it. And there's a chance that if Husted loses, I don't think he will, but if Husted…
Lisa Boothe
So I consider myself, you know, conservative, like a, you know, common sense conservative, common sense Republican, right?
Speaker 2
This seems to be an election.
Lisa Boothe
Cycle where the more moderate candidate, regardless of the state, is being rewarded.
Speaker names come from our own diarization. The position is estimated from where the line sits in the episode.
Dave Weigel said about Jon Husted, in Fast Politics with Molly Jong-Fast on October 15, 2026.
Dave Weigel of Semafor on Fast Politics, October 2026, on how Democrat Sherrod Brown is campaigning against Sen. Jon Husted in Ohio's Senate race.
Fast Politics with Molly Jong-Fast
Around 49:32 into the episode
Dave Weigel
…not going to win that. But if they lose that by two or three points instead of 15 points, that will indicate that they rolled the Trump wave back. And this is a This is like the wave in the second planet in Interstellar, very slow moving, gigantic wave that just kept crushing them for 10 years.
Molly Jong-Fast
But don't you don't you think that if anyone can do it, Sherrod is neatly qualified?
Dave Weigel
…has his record. For example, Democrats get blamed for shipping jobs overseas. That was never Sherrod Brown. He's always a trade protectionist. He's very comfortable bashing big corporations and saying that the government's being rigged to benefit them. Just there are Democrats have to learn that. That's not how he has to learn that. And he has that argument with Trump now and with John Husted. He's the face, Husted, according to the Brown campaign, the face of data centers. And that is something Republicans have adjusted. So an argument I was seeing in Ohio is that Houston saying Brown's a lot of talk, but he didn't achieve the things that we've been able to achieve. For example, the main example, he says, is Brown wanted to stop private equity from buying up homes. And I stopped that. That's my bill. I did it. You saw the same thing in May. As Susan Collins said…
Molly Jong-Fast
Right. I mean, it's very hard for them to make that case. What other what other like stories of the midterm are you watching besides Ohio states where you are? You know, where you think Democrats really have a shot, where we might be surprised in Iowa, Kansas or in Alaska or where you don't think…
Dave Weigel
And you think, well, you mentioned you mentioned most of them. The we're at the point where, again, Republicans are triaging and we're seeing who falls off. I am. We're also the fun part of the election. People overanalyze early voting and mail voting.
Charlie Sykes
Right.
Speaker names come from our own diarization. The position is estimated from where the line sits in the episode.
Where to Find Them
Jon Husted has been a guest on Brian Kilmeade Show (2 times) , Ruthless Podcast , Connected Nation and Guy Benson Show .
Recently: “FlyDubai Suspect “Was Going to Down the Plane”” on Brian Kilmeade Show (October 2026); “BENSON BYTE: Sen. Jon Husted Details Legislation on Data Centers, and College Sports Reform” on Guy Benson Show (September 2026); “Same Old Playbook: Democrats’ AI Fearmongering” on Brian Kilmeade Show (September 2026); “Talarico’s Shocking Behavior Makes Voters Suspicious” on Ruthless Podcast (September 2026); “Ohio's Lt. Governor on innovating state services and government through technology” on Connected Nation (February 2021).
What They Said
Sen. Jon Husted on the Clay Travis and Buck Sexton show, October 28, 2026, making his case for re-election; he said he led Ohio's economic revitalization as lieutenant governor.
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show
Around 00:44 into the episode
Speaker 1
All right.
Buck Sexton
…midterms, which are just days away now. Get out and vote. Get out and vote or Clay will shame you. We have now Senator John Husted with us. He is from the great state of Ohio. And Senator, you got to win, sir. I just I don't know what else to say. You got to win. Tell us how you're going to win.
John Husted
…I could be more places in Ohio than I've been from the river to the lake to the Indiana border to the Pennsylvania border. We've been everywhere reminding people about what we've done to fight for them, meaning working family tax cut plan, no tax on tips over time or social security, helping families get ahead and reminding them that I led the economic revitalization of Ohio. And today in Ohio, we have the most jobs and the lowest unemployment rate in our history. And if you elect Democrats, if you elect Sherry Brown, you will destroy. all of that momentum that we are creating, you will destroy the future of our state and our nation because this guy has been in office for over 50 years. And everywhere I go, I ask the question, what has Sherrod Brown done to make your life better? And nobody can come up with a single thing. They recognize he's had 50 years…
Clay Travis
So Trump won the state of Ohio by about 11 points. Bernie Marino beat this same guy, Sherrod Brown, running in 2024. But a part of me thinks there's probably because you just laid it out. He's been in office for so long. I bet you're running into a lot of people who think he's still in office…
Buck Sexton
Is there a little bit of that when you're on the campaign trail?
Clay Travis
And how might that impact things when people are upset about the direction of the country? You've got to be upset with a guy who was there for nearly 50 years.
Speaker names come from our own diarization. The position is estimated from where the line sits in the episode.
Sen. Jon Husted, the Republican candidate in Ohio's Senate race, on the Clay Travis and Buck Sexton show, October 28, 2026, on early-vote numbers. He had just compared 2026 turnout to 2022, when Republicans won Ohio statewide races by wide margins.
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show
Around 05:51 into the episode
John Husted
…for gas and oil and electricity. President being here really helps us get the message out because he won Ohio by 11 points. If we get those same voters to turn out, which it looks like we are, the early voting numbers are on track for us, right where we need them to be to win, all of it's helpful.
Clay Travis
…as early as they can. What are those early voting numbers telling you? And we got a big audience all throughout the state of Ohio, Cincinnati's listening, Columbus, and also Cleveland. What would you tell everybody listening right now in Ohio they need to do and what the data is showing you so far?
John Husted
Well, they need to get out and vote. And I have fresh data here. I'm looking right at it. It basically says that the turnout in 2026 is the same as the turnout it was in 2022. It's slightly elevated. in terms of like, we've got 120, 20% of the people or 120% of the early vote is, is outpacing where it was two years ago. But the mix in terms of Republicans and Democrats is right where it was in 2022. And what happened in 2022, JD Vance won by seven, Governor DeWine and I won by 25. I'm not predicting that we're going to win by 25 or seven. There are other issues. It's a midterm election in which the Republicans are in charge, which makes it harder to But but the numbers look good. And if vote if literally if Republicans get out to vote like they have done in the past, we will win.
Buck Sexton
Just wondering what you can tell us about the national Democrat effort to infuse cash outside dollars. And I'm sure media attention. How have they been trying to make Ohioans vote? forget what it's like to have Democrats in charge? What kind of campaigns are they running and where's the money…
John Husted
Well, they're hiding a lot of their candidates, frankly. They're not debating. They're not doing a lot of public appearances. They're not doing a lot of difficult media interviews because they don't want to talk. They just want to try to blame everything that's going wrong in the world on…
Buck Sexton
But is Sherrod Brown, is he doing the Biden thing of, I've been around forever, so of course I'm moderate, even though if he becomes a senator, he's going to vote with the radical left that controls his party. 99% of the time. Is that his, what's his move? I mean, you're mentioning that they're…
Speaker names come from our own diarization. The position is estimated from where the line sits in the episode.
Sen. Jon Husted, the Republican candidate in Ohio's Senate race, on the Clay Travis and Buck Sexton show, October 28, 2026, answering a question about how to handle data centers.
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show
Around 02:55 into the episode
John Husted
…And Sherrod Brown has done nothing but jack up their taxes, including jacking up their tax on gasoline, shutting down refineries, power plants, all of the things that we need to create the supply to meet demand. They don't see him as the solution to the problem. They see him as the problem.
Buck Sexton
…it's an issue in ohio as well what do you think about how this should be handled because right on the one hand you've got progress jobs uh tax revenue all these things the other hand you've got quality of life water and electricity prices i mean you have this push pull where do you come down on.
John Husted
That Yeah, well, in every interview I do, I remind people that this interview would not be possible without a data center. If you use your mobile phone, you're using a data center. You watch streaming, you're using a data center. So they're part of our daily lives. But the deal is, let's make sure that you only put them where people want them. If you're a community that doesn't want them, that should be decided at the local level. The federal government shouldn't tell you whether you have one or you don't have one. But the one thing that extends beyond the community is electric prices, okay? I had a bill. I have a bill pending in Congress that would require data centers to pay for all of the electricity generation and infrastructure, saving the local and state rate payers a bunch of money because the data centers will pay for the cost, not them. It passed the House. 417 to 3, 206 Democrats voted for it. But when it got back over to the Senate, Chuck Schumer blocked it. He blocked the bill that I had to require this because, frankly, Sherrod Brown.
Buck Sexton
Wanted him to.
John Husted
They didn't want me to get a win. They didn't want me to solve the problem. Here's the deal, folks. Democrats want to talk about affordability and data centers, but they don't want to do anything to help fix the problem. I have legislation to do that. It could be law today if Chuck Schumer hadn't…
Speaker 1
Senate.
Speaker names come from our own diarization. The position is estimated from where the line sits in the episode.