Tuesday 3 November 2026
Sherrod Brown returns to the Senate from Ohio and Adam Hamilton takes Kansas, two more Republican seats gone late in the night
The Associated Press has called Ohio's Senate special election for Democrat Sherrod Brown over Republican Senator Jon Husted, and its results file lists Kansas as called for Democrat Adam Hamilton over Republican Senator Roger Marshall. The Associated Press called the Ohio race at 11:10 p.m. Eastern. Its count had Brown at 2,024,960 votes and Husted at 1,938,300 as of 9:30 p.m. Colorado time, with an estimated 87.6 percent of the vote counted, a margin of 48.6 percent to 46.5. Hamilton is the first Democrat elected to the Senate from Kansas since 1932, ending a 94 year run that was the longest active Senate losing streak in the country. CNN and Decision Desk HQ called the Kansas race for Hamilton at 11:27 p.m. Eastern.
Brown's win is a return. He held an Ohio Senate seat for 18 years and lost it in 2024 to Republican Bernie Moreno. This race was a special election for the seat JD Vance left to become vice president. Governor Mike DeWine appointed Husted, then the lieutenant governor, to the seat in January 2025, and Trump endorsed Husted and campaigned with him in the closing weeks. Brown will serve the rest of Vance's term, through January 2029, and the seat is on the ballot again in 2028. The race was the second most expensive Senate contest of the cycle, behind only Texas.
Kansas was not supposed to be close at all. Trump carried the state by more than 16 points in 2024, and Marshall, an obstetrician elected to the Senate in 2020, was treated as safe until the race tightened in its final weeks. Trump and Vice President Vance both travelled to Kansas to campaign for him. Hamilton, the pastor of the country's largest United Methodist congregation, ran as an independent minded Democrat on affordability, outraised Marshall three to one in cash entering October, and attacked him over the lawsuits Marshall's medical practice filed against more than 700 patients with unpaid bills. Kansas last elected a Democratic senator in 1932, when George McGill won.
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