How Sherrod Brown is navigating Harris’ candidacy in GOP-leaning Ohio with Senate control at stake

For more on the high-stakes battle for control of the Senate, watch “Inside Politics Sunday with Manu Raju” on Sunday at 8 a.m. ET and 11 a.m. ET.

Sen. Sherrod Brown doesn’t plan to campaign with Vice President Kamala Harris.

He plans to skip the Democratic National Convention. And the Democratic senator isn’t going to defend Harris’ record — or offer praise to President Joe Biden or to Harris over their handling of the U.S.-Mexico border.

Instead, Brown — now embroiled in a high-stakes reelection battle central to the fight for the next Senate majority — is making this calculation: finding a way to disqualify his opponent, Bernie Moreno, in the eyes of GOP-leaning voters and independents. And it starts with attacking Moreno’s character, past business practices and position on abortion — all as he tries to avoid being tied to the top of his ticket.

“It’s not left or right. It’s not who you vote for, for president,” Brown told CNN at a textile company just outside of Cleveland. “It’s who stands up for people in the state.”

For Brown to win, he’ll have to defy a trend that has sunk nearly every Senate candidate who has tried to convince voters to split their tickets in the Donald Trump era. Just one candidate in the 69 Senate races in 2016 and 2020 won when their state voted for a presidential candidate of the opposite party.

With Trump the heavy favorite to win Ohio, a state he carried by eight points in 2020, Brown will need to court a sizable chunk of Trump voters — a complicated task in a polarized environment, especially given the withering criticism he’s leveled at the former president in the past and as Moreno simply tries to ride Trump’s coattails.

Brown, 71, who has been in