Latest news with #DignityofWorkInstitute
Yahoo
28-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Regardless of the candidate, Democrats face long odds in Ohio governor race
In a recent column in the Columbus Dispatch, Thomas Suddes puts a spotlight on the inability of state Democrats to line up behind a full slate of statewide candidates in 2026. The key challenge, Suddes says, is that Democrats have been forced into a holding pattern as they wait for former Senator Sherrod Brown and former Congressman and Senate candidate Tim Ryan to decide whether to jump into the race for Governor or Senator. From the perspective of the average voter, Amy Acton has been virtually non-existent as a candidate. Outside of a few non-eventful interviews and a decent first quarter of fundraising, she's made virtually no news on the campaign trail. A visit to her campaign website gives prospective voters nothing to go on with regard to where she stands on key policies or campaign events where potential supporters would have the chance to hear from her directly. Acton is the only major candidate to announce for the Democratic nomination, but the way she's running the race suggests that she is not preparing to push back very hard should another more experienced politician like Brown or Ryan enter the race. If Brown, Ryan, or another Democratic candidate decides to throw their hat into the ring for governor, it won't come as much of a surprise for Republicans. In his statement withdrawing from the race for governor, Ohio Attorney General David Yost takes a Sherrod Brown candidacy, in some form, as a given. Yost mentions Brown's "comeback attempt" and calls out "Sherrod Brown and the risky progressive ideas of his party." He makes no mention of Acton. Most political observers see Brown as the most competitive candidate that Democrats can put forward for statewide office. He has experience winning statewide, having won five statewide elections (going 3 for 4 in Senate races and 2 for 3 in Secretary of State races), before losing in the 2024 Senate race to Bernie Moreno. At 72 years of age, Brown might decide to forgo further political office. But ending on a losing note might rankle the longtime politician. After nearly 50 years in office, Brown understandably may prefer to make his last race a successful one. More: Sherrod Brown forms workers' group as he mulls 2026 bid for Ohio governor, Senate Recent moves by Brown have only added fuel to the fire. In March, the Columbus Dispatch reported that Brown and his wife moved to the Columbus area. Brown also formed an organization called the Dignity of Work Institute, and the group's website doesn't do much to dispel the notion that Brown continues to hold political ambitions. The case for Brown is relatively clear. For one, his political persona seems tailor-made for the Trump era. He's experienced and comfortable on the campaign trail, is more likely to be seen in a sweatshirt than a suit jacket, and has a long history of speaking to working-class and union-friendly issues. Brown's timing might be right as well. His three elections for the Senate came during years that Democrats did well, including the Obama reelection year of 2012, and Democratic wave elections in 2006 and 2018. In some ways, Democrats seem well-positioned for success in 2026, given the history of midterm shifts against the party of the incumbent and the level of Democratic enthusiasm and turnout that's been seen in special elections. Whether the Democrats put up Acton or Brown or someone else entirely for governor, a recent analysis by the New York Times makes it clear that the party's path to the Ohio governor's mansion is not an easy one to navigate. The long and the short of it is that Republicans have made huge gains in working-class communities and counties where fewer people have college degrees. Democrats, meanwhile, have seen small increases in support from high-income counties and counties with high percentages of college-educated populations. Democrats indeed continue to do pretty well in urban settings like Cincinnati, where a high percentage of voters have college degrees. But in Ohio, most voters don't live in places like Cincinnati. In the most recent presidential election, 56% of Ohio voters lived in one of the 76 counties where the percentage of adults with a college degree was below the national average. Just 44% of Ohio voters lived in one of the 12 counties that were above the national average. And although Democrats continue to have the advantage in those highly educated counties, their advantage there has not expanded as much as the advantage that Republicans have in the counties with lower levels of college-educated voters. In 2012, Obama pulled in 46% of Ohio voters in lower-education counties. In 2024, Harris pulled in just 35%. In contrast, Harris's share of voters in higher-education counties was one point lower than Obama's, 55% compared with 56%. More: Ramaswamy rides the Trump wave in Ohio governor race while Yost gets swept aside | Opinion While it is true that Democratic counties are bigger, on average, than the Republican ones, there are a heck of a lot of Republican counties in Ohio. In 2024, for example, 56% of presidential votes came from working-class counties. In addition, a lot of Ohio's counties are getting more Republican each election. Of the Ohio counties that shifted in one direction in each of the last three presidential elections − one of the key indicators identified in the New York Times analysis − 34 of them moved in the direction of Republicans, and just one (Delaware) moved towards Democrats. Democrats are pinning their hopes on the idea that Brown is a different sort of Democrat and that he does well in some of the counties where Republicans have gained ground. But election results suggest that Brown has suffered from a similar erosion in support across Ohio as that experienced by the Democratic presidential candidates. Brown's support from counties with lower levels of college education fell from 47% in 2018 to 38% in 2024, and he ran ahead of Harris in those areas by just three points. Of course, every election is different, and no trend in politics lasts forever. It's possible that Brown doesn't even run, and if he does, maybe he is able to recapture some of the working-class votes that Democrats have lost across the state in recent years. For her part, Amy Acton's background as a medical doctor and her public image as the face of the state's COVID-19 response make it unlikely that she will break through in Ohio's working-class communities. Brown is better positioned than Acton to make a run, but either way, it's a long shot for Ohio Democrats. Mack Mariani is a professor of political science at Xavier University who lives in Wyoming. Contact him on X: @mackmariani. The views and opinions expressed by the author are solely his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of his employer, his wife, this newspaper, the residents of Hyde Park, the pharmaceutical industry, or Dr. Amy Acton. This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Winning governor's race a long shot for Ohio Democrats | Opinion
Yahoo
25-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Sherrod Brown launches nonprofit focused on jobs, economy
COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) — Former U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown on Monday announced his first major project since leaving Capitol Hill. Brown announced the Dignity of Work Institute, which he called a nonpartisan, nonprofit group with a focus on jobs and the economy. He said both Republicans and Democrats have ignored workers for years — addressing issues like low wages, overtime and home ownership. Brown said he's hopeful this organization and the research it provides will make the issue a higher priority in Washington. One measure of property tax relief works its way through Ohio Statehouse 'Presidents of both parties keep saying the economy is great,' Brown said. 'Trump said it in his first term, Biden said it, Trump is saying it again. But you ask workers, the economy is not — it hasn't been for a long time — serving workers.' In making the announcement, the institute released research that showed 60% of Americans have worked more than one job at the same time, and about 20% have worked three jobs or more at once. The key takeaways from the study were: Working multiple jobs is now a way of life for many Workers are so strapped that their definition of 'essential' is the bare minimum Many feel like the economy is stacked against them Americans want big changes to the economy that produce higher incomes and lower costs Americans everywhere are struggling, but some groups are hurting more acutely Most think their life will improve People believe they can succeed but the economy is failing them 'American workers built this country and are working harder than ever, but have less and less to show for it — they're producing more than ever, but their wages have barely budged and the cost of living keeps getting worse,' Brown said in the news release. 'Working people have not given up on the American dream, but they know they're working in a rigged system.' Family of WWII veteran who fought alongside Navajo Code Talkers responds to DEI scrub from Pentagon Brown declined to discuss any possible run for political office next year. The long-serving Democrat has been linked to both the race for Ohio governor and the U.S. Senate in 2026. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
25-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Former Ohio U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown launches Dignity of Work Institute
U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown speaks to a supporter at a Democratic Party campaign event for Franklin County voters. (Photo by Graham Stokes for Ohio Capital Journal. Republish photo only with original article.) In the wake of a bruising 2024 election, Democrats are looking to define their party's identity and former Ohio U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown is offering a familiar answer. With the launch of his Dignity of Work Institute, Brown is making the case for a politics focused on the cost of living for working class voters. 'We see what's happened over the last 40 years,' Brown said in a press conference Monday. 'Corporate profits have soared, executive compensation has exploded, and productivity keeps going up and up, but wages aren't rising along with it, and the cost of living just keeps getting more expensive.' 'In a nutshell,' he added, 'people can't keep up no matter how hard they work.' In a survey of registered voters, the institute found exactly the sorts of concerns you'd expect if you followed last year's election — workers are feeling pinched by increasing costs and stagnant wages. The study found a strong majority of respondents have had to work more than one job at some point in their lives. A quarter of respondents have had to do so in the last two years. Workers told researchers they're ready for significant changes to the economy that would lower costs and increase wages. Nevertheless, they report optimism for their near-term futures. 'Workers keep telling us the status quo isn't working for them and their families, but neither party — neither party — has an agenda to create the dramatic change that workers want and the dramatic change that workers are demanding,' Brown said. There has been speculation that Brown might use the institute as a springboard for a future political campaign. But he insisted that's not the case. 'This institute is not part of those plans, period,' he said, adding, 'I don't know what I'm going to do in the future.' The research firm GQR contacted 1,000 registered voters over the phone last month for the survey and then supplemented that with additional sampling of Black, Hispanic and younger (18-29 years old) voters. They report a +/- 3.1 percentage point margin of error overall, with margins about twice as large among the oversampled groups. Pollster Al Quinn called their findings 'one of the more startling projects' in his career. 'It paints a picture, as the senator said, of Americans fighting to stay afloat in an economy that's much more brittle than the standard narrative suggests,' he explained. To boil it all down, he said, respondents throughout the survey are struggling with money going out the door faster than it's coming in. 'How are they dealing with it?' he said. 'They're working more.' According to the survey, 6 in 10 have worked two jobs at some point, and 1 in 5 reported having to work at least three jobs at once. Although people are working hard, their financial outlook remains precarious. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX 'Over half — 54% say I could not really afford a $1,000 hit,' Quinn explained. 'That would produce a significant burden, to a massive burden on my household.' To make ends meet, he went on, people are relying on government assistance programs like Medicaid, unemployment, SNAP food benefits, and school lunch programs. Sixty percent of respondents reported using at least one program. When pollsters asked respondents what stands in the way of them getting ahead, 86% wanted to see 'significant' changes to the economy. 'People were saying, I need these costs to come down, I can't afford them, and I need more income coming in, I'm just incredibly strapped,' Quinn described. At the same time, they found an abiding optimism among respondents. Pollsters asked them to rate their current situation on a zero-to-10 scale and then asked them where they expected to be in five years. Quinn said many believe things will get better. They'll pick up another job, get training for a promotion, or even move to take a better gig. 'They are aspirational,' he said, 'but the system is not what's giving them those aspirations. It's their own personal drive and their own personal wherewithal.' To Brown, the study underscores a strain of working-class dissatisfaction with politics writ large. 'I think that they think Democrats are the party of betrayal and Republicans are the party of rewarding the rich,' Brown said. 'I want there to be, not a separate party, but I want the workers to feel like they have a home in both parties, both parties are addressing their concerns, and it's pretty clear they aren't.' As an example, he pointed to a court case in Texas challenging a Biden-era rule on how overtime gets calculated. 'One judge in one district struck down that rule on overtime,' he explained. 'It means 4 million workers will not get overtime that would have, that had come from a Department of Labor rule, but I've heard neither party fight back against that court case.' 'It's things like that that are happening far too often,' he added, 'and this institute will speak out on those things.' But for all Brown's efforts to downplay his own political future, it's hard to miss the echoes of the former senator's political brand, including Brown's 'dignity of work' slogan and the institute's mission that reads like a Brown stump speech. Even if he decides not to run for office again, Brown's clearly still hoping to have an impact. 'It's not a one-day story, it's not a one-month Institute,' he said. 'We're going to raise money — we're starting. We're going to hire people — we're starting. This is going to be a big deal, if done right, and we're going to do it right nationally.' Follow Ohio Capital Journal Reporter Nick Evans on X or on Bluesky. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Associated Press
24-03-2025
- Politics
- Associated Press
Ohio's Sherrod Brown, weighing his political future, launches a pro-worker organization
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Former U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown launched a pro-worker organization on Monday to promote the 'Dignity of Work,' a creed that he has advanced for years as an officeholder and candidate and that he recently described in a national magazine column as the key to the future of the Democratic Party. The non-partisan Dignity of Work Institute will be based in the state capital of Columbus, where he and wife Connie Schultz, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, moved last week. They previously lived in Cleveland. The move comes as speculation swirls about Brown's political future and adds a familiar voice to the national conversation among Democrats about how best to respond to their poor showing in the 2024 election, which saw Republicans take control of all three branches of the federal government. Brown, 72, is weighing a run for Senate in 2026 after losing his bid for a fourth term to Cleveland businessman Bernie Moreno last year. Before that, the Ohio Democrat had spent three decades in Congress and consistently won statewide elections even as the former bellwether state turned reliably Republican in the era of Donald Trump. The new organization's stated mission is to put American workers back at the center of the national conversation, on issues such as wages, family leave, housing, education and retirement. Brown recently offered a treatise of sorts in The New Republic magazine for restoring the national Democratic Party and regaining the support of working class voters. 'We cannot solve this problem without an honest assessment of who we are,' he wrote. 'How we see ourselves as the Democratic Party -- the party of the people, the party of the working class and the middle class -- no longer matches up with what most voters think.' The progressive Center for American Progress Action Fund has scheduled Brown as its keynote speaker on Wednesday at an event titled, 'Working-Class Voters, the Economy, and the Democratic Party.'
New York Times
24-03-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
Sherrod Brown, Weighing a 2026 Senate Bid, Starts a Workers' Group
Sherrod Brown is out of the Senate, but he is not done with politics. Mr. Brown, the Ohio Democrat who lost his bid for a fourth Senate term last year, announced on Monday that he was forming a nonprofit group called the Dignity of Work Institute. The group, he said in an interview, will aim to illustrate the plight of workers in a country where both major parties have forgotten their concerns. 'Democrats have become seen as the compensate-the-betrayed party,' Mr. Brown said. 'You know, you lost your job, we'll give you some help. And Republicans are the reward-the-winners party. And that's corporations and the ultrawealthy. Neither party is the make-workers-the-winners party.' Mr. Brown, 72, fell to defeat last year as President Trump won an overwhelming victory in Ohio, which during the former senator's 32 years in Congress transformed from a presidential battleground to a Republican stronghold. Now Mr. Brown, who considered running for president in 2020, is seeking to resuscitate what has long been his signature political issue — the fate of American workers. At the same time, his fellow Democrats are beginning to coalesce around a message of opposition to the billionaires running the federal government. His new organization will function as a nonpartisan think tank, conducting research about American workers and aiming to illuminate challenges they face in an effort to persuade politicians and the public to pay attention to workers' needs. Not that Mr. Brown is necessarily done running for elected office himself. The famously frumpy Ohioan said he was weighing running for either Senate or governor in his home state next year. Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican, is barred from seeking re-election by term limits, and Senator Jon Husted, a Republican whom Mr. DeWine appointed to fill the seat vacated by Vice President JD Vance, will face voters for the chance to serve the remaining two years of Mr. Vance's term. Democrats again face a daunting Senate map in 2026. Any hope the party has of taking back the chamber, which Republicans now control 53 to 47, requires winning red states like Ohio. Dr. Amy Acton, a Democrat who ran the Ohio Department of Health during the coronavirus pandemic, is already running for governor. Several Republicans are also in the race, including Vivek Ramaswamy, the Trump ally who ran for president last year, and Dave Yost, the Ohio attorney general. Mr. Brown said the possibility that he could seek office again was 'not really material' to his new institute. 'I'll make a decision later about governor or senator,' he said. 'I really don't know if I want to run for office again.' The first order of business for his group is to amplify the results of a poll it conducted that found a dismal and unstable outlook for American workers. The poll found that 60 percent of Americans had worked more than one job at a time, and that 20 percent said they had worked three jobs simultaneously. Those surveyed expressed anger at the country's economic system: Half said it needed to change, and 30 percent called for a complete overhaul. The reality of Americans' anger at the system, Mr. Brown said, does not comport with sunny portrayals of the economy from Mr. Trump and President Joseph R. Biden Jr. during their presidencies. Mr. Brown said the polling helped explain why voters in three straight presidential elections had chosen the candidate promising more change. 'Biden and Trump, they both cite the unemployment rate and decreasing rate of inflation, but they're not really talking to workers and not really understanding workers' lives that way,' Mr. Brown said. 'Voters in 2020 chose Biden because they wanted change. In 2024, they voted for Trump because they wanted change again.'
