New ad in key Ohio Senate race touts a vulnerable Democrat's work with Trump

CLEVELAND — A new ad in Ohio’s slugfest of a Senate race draws a positive link between vulnerable Democratic incumbent Sherrod Brown and former President Donald Trump, whose past electoral victories here reinforced the state’s heavy Republican lean.

“He wrote a bill that Donald Trump signed to crack down on drugs at the border,” Scott, a Marine Corps veteran and retired detective who lost his son to an opioid addiction, says of Brown in the spot from Duty and Honor, a Democratic group tied to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. “Sherrod’s work will prevent more families from having to go through what we did.”

The ad, shared first with NBC News, will debut Friday on statewide TV and digital platforms and is backed by $2.4 million.

“Sherrod Brown worked across the aisle to pass a bill that increased law enforcement’s ability to crack down on the flow of fentanyl because he is putting the needs of Ohio families first,” Duty and Honor President JB Poersch said in a statement. “Ohio deserves to know that Brown is an independent leader, who will work across the aisle to get things done for Ohio.”

Brown faces Trump-endorsed Republican Bernie Moreno, a former car dealer and blockchain entrepreneur, in a general election that’s expected to see hundreds of millions of dollars in spending. Brown and Sen. Jon Tester of Montana, another red-state Democrat up for re-election, are key to their party’s thin Senate majority.

The Duty and Honor ad represents the first general election push in Ohio by a Schumer-aligned constellation of outside money groups that includes Senate Majority PAC. Another affiliated organization, Duty and Country PAC, aired an ad touting Moreno’s conservative credentials in the final days of the Republican