Ohio Democrat Posts Provocative Viral Ad Dropping F-Bomb on GOP Opponent’s Comments on Poverty
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Former Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) dropped some salty language in a video ad he posted on social media, calling out his GOP opponent, incumbent Sen. Jon Husted (R-OH), for his comments on poverty from earlier this year.
Brown was first elected to represent the Buckeye State in the U.S. Senate in 2006 and served until he was defeated by Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-OH) in 2024. Before he was in the Senate, Brown represented Ohio’s 13th congressional district, and previously served as Ohio secretary of state and spent several years in the state house.
Husted was appointed to the Senate in 2025 when JD Vance became vice president. He previously served as Ohio’s lieutenant governor, secretary of state, a state senator, speaker of the Ohio House, and a state representative. This year, he is running in a special election in November to fill the remainder of Vance’s Senate term, which will be up for re-election in 2028.
President Donald Trump won the state of Ohio by solid margins all three times he has run for president, but in 2026, his abysmal polls seem to be dragging down Husted’s chances on this November’s ballot. The polls tracked by RealClearPolitics have had Brown up for months; their polling average currently has him up by almost 4 points. A Fox News Power Rankings update from earlier this month also moved three Ohio races to the left, a shift their reporter partially credited to Brown running a “strong race” and helping boost down-ballot Democrats.
Brown’s new 30-second ad features a variety of Ohio residents holding up their phones and reacting to video of Husted talking about poverty.
The video sets the tone from the very beginning, with a man pointing and saying, “Listen to this sh*t.” (The word is censored in the caption but not in the video itself.)
The video shows Ohioans reacting to a clip of Husted from March in which he says that “people living in poverty” are “not very experienced at navigating the real world.”
The Republican goes on to describe a “young lady” who he said had grown up on food stamps and said she did not “really understand how money works at a grocery store.”
“So you literally have to teach people how to budget,” says Husted.
The people’s reactions as this video of Husted played included raised eyebrows, open-mouthed gasps, angry frowns, and one final woman who declared, “F*ck that” — and then the ad goes directly to Brown’s “I’m Sherrod Brown and I approve this message” disclaimer.
Brown’s ad racked up over 350K views in just a few hours and drew a lot of positive reactions from his supporters and left-of-center political commentators, including criticism for what many viewed as an out-of-touch or unfair message from Husted, as well as negative responses from the right.
A selection of reactions is below.
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