Just days before Ohio's primary election, former Sen. Sherrod Brown is telling voters he supports closing the southern border and deporting criminal illegal immigrants. Republicans say the claim is flatly contradicted by more than three decades of votes, and they have the roll-call receipts to prove it.
Brown, the three-term Democrat who lost his Senate seat to Republican Bernie Moreno in 2024, is running again, this time seeking the seat held by Sen. Jon Husted, who was appointed to Vice President JD Vance's vacancy at the start of the second Trump administration. The Cook Political Report rates Ohio one of just three toss-up Senate races nationally, making Brown's positioning on immigration a matter of more than local interest.
In an interview last month, Brown offered a line that could have come from almost any border-hawk Republican. Fox News Digital reported Brown saying:
"I support closing the border to people so they just can't cross the border at will, but I also say we, of course, should be deporting people that have committed a crime, surely."
The statement sounds firm enough on its own. The trouble is what Brown actually did during his nearly two decades in the Senate, and his years in the House before that.
Fox News Digital compiled a string of specific votes that cut against Brown's new rhetoric. In 2001, Brown voted to stop funding for the deportation of criminal aliens, a House roll-call vote still on the public record. Twenty years later, in 2021, he voted to cancel Trump's border wall projects. Two years after that, he voted against restarting border wall construction.
Brown also voted against $300 million for U.S. Customs and Border Protection earmarked for opioid and narcotic detection at the southern border. He voted against ensuring ICE had sufficient resources to detain and deport a higher number of illegal immigrants convicted of crimes. And he voted against funding to stop criminal aliens from securing amnesty.
From 2001 through 2024, the former senator voted at least 10 times to protect federal funding for sanctuary cities. In 2019, he co-sponsored the End Mass Deportation Act, which sought to rescind Trump's executive order prioritizing the deportation of criminal illegal immigrants and withholding funding from sanctuary cities.
That is not the record of a man who supports "closing the border." It is the record of a man who consistently voted against the tools needed to enforce it.
Drew Thompson, Husted's campaign manager, did not mince words. In a statement, Thompson said Brown had "shocked Ohioans in 2024 by claiming he only hears about illegal immigration from the far Right" and is "now desperate to return to Washington and continue the same Biden-era open border policies he supported for 32 years."
Thompson drew a direct contrast with Husted:
"Jon Husted, on the other hand, is working to clean up Sherrod Brown's mess by funding border security, supporting border agents, and standing for the rule of law."
The National Republican Senatorial Committee piled on. NRSC regional press secretary Nick Puglia said Brown's "lies aren't going to trick Ohioans." Puglia added that voters "know Brown has fought for over half a century alongside liberals like Kamala Harris to open our borders and protect dangerous criminal illegals from deportation."
Brown's campaign did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment.
The broader fight over election integrity in the Senate has drawn sharp lines between the parties, as recent clashes over the SAVE Act amendment demonstrated.
Brown's sudden hawkishness on immigration is not entirely new. The Washington Examiner previously reported that Brown co-sponsored SB 1473, a bill that would authorize the immediate expulsion of certain inadmissible migrants, effectively extending Title 42. That move came after Brown, in 2020, had signed a letter with 26 other Democratic senators calling Title 42 the "CDC asylum ban" and arguing it was "designed to further an ongoing agenda to exclude asylum seekers, in violation of Congress' plain word and intent."
So Brown opposed Title 42 when it was politically safe among Democrats, then reversed himself when illegal crossings surged and the issue became a liability in Ohio. A CBP official reported 9,000 illegal immigrant apprehensions nationwide on a single day after Title 42 expired, providing exactly the kind of pressure that tends to produce election-year conversions.
The flip-flop on Title 42 fits the broader pattern visible in Brown's roll-call votes. When the political winds favored open borders and progressive immigration stances, Brown voted accordingly. When those winds shifted, particularly in a state Trump carried convincingly, Brown adjusted his talking points.
The question for Ohio voters is whether the talking points or the votes tell the real story.
The Ohio Senate race carries weight well beyond the state's borders. The Cook Political Report lists it among just three toss-up contests, alongside the Maine seat held by Sen. Susan Collins and the open Michigan seat left by retiring Sen. Gary Peters. Close races in Alaska, Georgia, North Carolina, and New Hampshire are also drawing heavy attention and campaign dollars.
Senate control could hinge on a handful of these contests. That reality explains why Brown is scrambling to reposition himself on immigration, and why Republicans are determined not to let him do it quietly. Trump has pushed Senate Republicans to hold the line on key legislative fights, a dynamic that has shaped strategy on the Save America Act and other priorities.
Signal Cleveland reported this week that Husted's campaign launched a $1 million ad campaign for the Senate race. Thompson framed the early spending as a statement of intent, telling the outlet that Husted "is getting an early start by taking his story directly to voters who are ready for a fresh, common-sense approach in Washington."
Democrats, meanwhile, face their own internal tensions. Some of Chuck Schumer's handpicked Senate recruits have refused to back him as leader, a sign that the party's progressive brand is a harder sell in competitive states.
Brown's challenge is acute. He lost in 2024 after nearly two decades in the Senate, and he is now trying to win back voters who rejected him by adopting the very positions he spent a career opposing. His 30-plus-year record includes votes against border wall funding, against resources for ICE to deport convicted criminals, against opioid-detection funding at the border, and in favor of sanctuary-city protections, at least 10 times.
That record did not accumulate by accident. It reflects a consistent set of choices made over decades, in both the House and the Senate. A single interview comment about "closing the border" does not erase it.
Party-line discipline has been a recurring flashpoint in the Senate, with Republicans and Democrats clashing over spending bill amendments tied to border security and election integrity. Brown's attempt to blur the lines on immigration fits a familiar Democratic playbook: vote with the progressive base in Washington, then campaign as a moderate back home.
Sherrod Brown is a skilled politician. He held his Ohio Senate seat for three terms in a state that was trending red beneath him. He knows how to talk to working-class voters. But talk is cheap when the roll-call record is public.
Brown voted to defund deportation of criminal aliens. He voted to cancel border wall construction, twice. He co-sponsored legislation to end mass deportation of criminal illegal immigrants. He voted against funding to detect fentanyl and other narcotics at the southern border. He voted to shield sanctuary cities from losing federal dollars, over and over again.
Now he says he supports closing the border.
Ohio voters can read. They can also remember 2024, when Brown told them he only heard about illegal immigration from the "far Right", as though the issue were a fringe concern rather than a crisis visible in communities across the state and the country.
Voters deserve candidates who mean what they say before the election, not just during it. Brown's record speaks clearly. Whether he likes it or not, it will be on the ballot alongside him.