Former Democratic Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown’s apparent leftward messaging shift on policing may come back to haunt his bid to return to Congress’s upper chamber in November, law enforcement officers in the state told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Brown served in the Senate for three terms before losing reelection in 2024, but is vying to win his state’s other seat in the chamber by unseating Republican Sen. Jon Husted. Husted was appointed by Republican Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine to replace Vice President-elect JD Vance in January 2025. Law enforcement personnel in Ohio said that, while Brown may present himself as a moderate, his recent comments may signal he is seeking the support of the Democrats’ far-left flank, especially relating to the issue of crime. (RELATED: GOP Senator’s Campaign Gets Massive Cash Infusion As High-Stakes Race Heats Up)
“Law and order should be at the top of everyone’s mind these elections. It’s what drives society. It’s what makes people feel safe. It’s something that affects everyone,” Eric Delbert, a sergeant for 32 years in a central Ohio suburb, told the Daily Caller News Foundation .
Delbert claimed that, while Brown’s centrist and pro-working class persona initially “sounded good,” the Democrat “failed law enforcement” in the years following the Black Lives Matter riots of summer 2020.
The sergeant highlighted an April 2021 post Brown made to Twitter claiming Columbus police “shot and killed a sixteen-year-old girl.” By the time Brown sent the post, however, publicly released body camera footage showed the girl, Ma’Khia Bryant, apparently lunged at two women with a knife and resisted multiple calls to “get down,” prompting Columbus Police Department Officer Nicholas Reardon to fatally shoot her.
Furthermore, the senator’s tweet linked to a Columbus Dispatch story showing a still of body cam video depicting Bryant brandishing a knife at one of the women, who was against the hood of a car.
Brown’s campaign did not respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.
While the verdict was being read in the Derek Chauvin trial, Columbus police shot and killed a sixteen-year-old girl.
Her name was Ma’Khia Bryant. She should be alive right now. #MaKhiaBryanthttps://t.co/8SBdK4mxlE
— Sherrod Brown (@SenSherrodBrown) April 21, 2021
Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) Capital City Lodge #9 President Brian Steel told the DCNF his organization’s members “were very upset that [Brown] would make that tweet, especially not knowing the facts and laying the blame on the police officer.”
The Columbus-based police leader noted Brown “has been asked to answer that many times,” adding “we don’t expect ever a formal apology.”
“I think he knows that that was maybe got caught up in the moment. And the important part is, since then, he has not done anything like that,” Steel added.
The Ohio FOP did not to back a candidate in Ohio’s 2024 Senate race, after having supported Brown during his successful 2012 reelection bid.
A spokesman for the state FOP attributed the Order’s lack of endorsement in that election to Brown’s post, telling the New York Post at the time, “It came down to a tweet. There was a shooting here, and Sherrod, instead of taking time to listen and talk to us and understand the situation, did what all these people do now and got on his phone.”
The Ohio FOP has likewise not yet endorsed a candidate in the state’s 2026 Senate contest.
Senate Democrats, including (L-R) Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA), Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH), and Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO), take a knee as they participate in a moment of silence to honor George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter movement in Emancipation Hall of the U.S. Capitol on June 4, 2020 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Sarah Silbiger/Getty Images)
“He [Brown] could have said, in those circumstances, ‘Hey, look, this is a tragic event. We need to let the let it play out and let the investigation play out,” Delbert told the DCNF. “But no, he jumped on the bandwagon with a lot of these politicians, and he made some really hurtful statements from a politician of his nature towards these officers.” (RELATED: Democrat Senator’s Campaign Manager Touts TikTok Strategy After Her Boss Voted To Ban It)
“It is crazy how cut and dry anyone, regardless of your political affiliation, regardless to any preconceived notion of law enforcement, would look at that video and say, ‘Oh, my God, that officer just saved someone’s life,’” the sergeant added, referring to the body cam footage of the incident. “Happened to be a life of another black person.”
Delbert also said he noticed Brown shifted his tone on police around the time of George Floyd’s death in May 2020. That December, the senator posted a similar tweet about Casey Goodson Jr., a black man fatally shot by an Ohio police officer. The officer’s attorney maintains Goodson pointed a gun at his client and failed to drop it when instructed to do so.
Brown notably responded to Floyd’s death by kneeling on the Capitol floor with several Democratic colleagues. He also gave a speech on the Senate floor about “the systems of oppression affecting our Black and brown communities.”
Steel also told the DCNF “the overwhelming majority” of Ohio residents “support their law enforcement.”
“And I think many public officials, turned their back on us in 2020 following the civil unrest. And I think they saw how wrong that was, and a lot of them really took a hit on the chin from that,” he added. “So, it’s almost like the Democratic Party is coming back, trying to win our support again and our trust.”
It was a pleasure to meet with Fraternal Order of Police of Ohio this morning. http://t.co/FQFzpINzq3 pic.twitter.com/OYfNWm9znd
— Sherrod Brown (@SenSherrodBrown) February 10, 2015
National FOP President Patrick Yoes honored Brown with an award at the Ohio FOP’s annual conference in Cincinnati in July 2025 — the month before Brown entered the 2026 Senate race against Husted. Yoes singled out Brown for co-sponsoring the bipartisan Social Security Fairness Act, which nixed some limits on Social Security benefits for law enforcement officers.
“As a labor leader, we try to explain to my members that, listen, when a relationship is broken, it’s going to take a while to get those relationships back,” Steel told the DCNF. He also noted his Order also had frustrations with the GOP in the past, including in 2011 when Republicans in the state legislature passed, and then-Gov. John Kasich signed, Senate Bill 5. The law was aimed at cracking down on the collective bargaining rights of the state’s public employees, including police officers.
“My members are overwhelmingly conservative right leaning, but we have very Democratic needs such as unions, so we’re kind of like a little bit carved out, almost — police and fire unions from the rest.”
Ottawa County Sheriff Steve Levorchick told the DCNF that Husted, who has served in the upper chamber for just over a year, “has championed bills that have set the course for law enforcement the future” as well as bills that have “ensured the safety and security of law enforcement to return home to their families.”
The incumbent Republican “doesn’t just submit a bill or partner on a bill that he thinks will help law enforcement,” the sheriff added, placing emphasis on the word “he.” “Before he [Husted] does any of that, he speaks to us in law enforcement and asks our opinion, and he ensures that he’s doing what’s right for law enforcement as a whole. And he does that by contacting us, speaking with us, meeting with us.”
U.S. Sen. Jon Husted (R-OH), as his wife Tina Husted looks on, is ceremonially sworn in by Vice President JD Vance in the Old Senate Chamber at the U.S. Capitol on January 21, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Kent Nishimura/Getty Images)
Husted “ensures that he’s always doing what’s best for us, not what he thinks is best, but truly what is best,” Levorchick continued.
The sheriff serves a small, lakeside county of 40,000 which voted for President Donald Trump in 2016, 2020, and 2024, but had also supported Democrat Barack Obama for president in 2008 and 2012. Brown had carried the county, a popular vacation destination, during all three of his successful Senate bids. However, he lost to now-Republican Sen. Bernie Moreno in the 2024 election cycle.
“So, everyone comes here to the lake during the summertime for getaways … and so even being a moderate sized agency, moderate sized community, we are very involved in those conversations only because of our relationship with our senators, both Sen. Husted and Sen. Moreno,” Levorchick told the DCNF. “They both include us. One thing I will say is Sen. Husted doesn’t hesitate to reach out to me if he has a thought or a question or concern with law enforcement and the representation of law enforcement by the U.S. Senate.”
The nonpartisan Cook Political Report rates the race between Brown and Husted as a “toss up.” If Democrats fail to flip the Ohio seat in November, the party’s path to retaking control of the upper chamber becomes significantly more difficult. Brown, who was first elected to public office in 1975 and already won three Senate races in the red-leaning state, was widely viewed as a star Democratic recruit when he had entered the race.
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