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GOP
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Appointed Sen. Jon Husted (R-OH) is in a tough fight with former three-term senator Sherrod Brown. New reporting about an old $60 million bribery scandal that has come back may make it even worse for Husted.
The scandal is very complicated. if you want a detailed description, check Wikipedia. Here is a rough summary: Ohio FirstEnergy is an electric utility company that funneled $60 million through a dark-money 501(c)(4) strawman organization called Generation Now in order to bribe Ohio legislators into passing H.B. 6 in 2019, which gave the company a $1.3 billion ratepayer-funded bailout.
It worked like this: Former state House speaker Larry Householder (R), who was on the take from FirstEnergy and who orchestrated H.B. 6, recruited a team of 20 Republican state House candidates who pledged to support Householder for speaker if elected. Householder funded their campaigns using dark money from FirstEnergy, funneled through Generation Now. In effect, FirstEnergy bought Householder to get him to pass the $1.3 billion bill the company wanted. When this came out in 2021, Householder was expelled from the Ohio House and in 2023, along with others, convicted of racketeering and sentenced to 20 years in federal prison after the company confessed to the scheme and paid a $230 million fine. In 2025, a federal appeals court upheld Householder's conviction.
Husted's position on this is that he is as pure as the driven snow and knew nothing about any of this, even though he was Ohio's lieutenant governor at the time. Recent reporting shows Husted knew plenty and has been lying about it for years. In March of this year, Husted was called as a witness in the trial of FirstEnergy's former CEO Chuck Jones and its lobbyist Michael Dowling, the people who planned the caper. The trial ended in a hung jury and the judge has scheduled a retrial for Sept. 28. Husted is likely to be called again to testify in the middle of his campaign.
Although Husted has claimed he knew nothing about anything, his calendar has been introduced as evidence and it shows many meetings while the above was going on with Jones, Householder, and the state's top utility regulator, who has since died. Although Husted has never been charged with a crime, the large number of meetings he had with people who have been indicted or convicted in the scandal raises a lot of questions about his role in this. Evidence also shows Jones and Dowling discussing how Husted pushed for even more subsidies in H.B. 6. Screenshots of their conversations were entered as evidence. Among other things, Husted's role included extending the subsides from 6 years to 10 years and getting the bill through the Senate. Husted's explanation is essentially "I wanted to keep the lights on for Ohioans."
Oh, and also, the AP has also uncovered evidence that FirstEnergy funneled $1 million into Husted's 2017 (failed) gubernatorial campaign via another strawman organization. The whole thing is very sleazy at best and criminal at worst. The last thing Husted needs is for the whole affair to be front and center in October and all over the news in Ohio.
Senate Republicans fully understand the gravity of the situation. The Senate Republicans' main super PAC, the Senate Leadership Fund, is planning to spend $80 million, a quarter of its entire budget, to save Husted's neck. Although Democratic voters and Republican don't agree on much, one thing they do agree on is that they don't like politicians who are on the take from big companies, especially a hated electric utility company. Sherrod Brown's ads have to be carefully worded, but since FirstEnergy has admitted guilt and paid a fine and one of the most corrupt politicians involved is in prison, he has plenty of material to work with. How about: "Husted helped corrupt politicians and lobbyists pass a rate increase that drove your electricity bill through the roof." Pity it doesn't fit on a bumper sticker. But it does fit nicely in a 30-sec TV ad. (V)