Trump-Linked ‘Pop-Up’ PACs Intensify Ohio Ad Blitz Against Sherrod Brown as Senate Spending Nears $300 Million
By Saqib S. Qureshi — SCN News
WASHINGTON/COLUMBUS, Ohio, Sept. 18 — Republican outside groups have poured about $14 million into Ohio advertising in a single week as the battle between Republican Sen. Jon Husted and Democrat Sherrod Brown becomes the most expensive Senate advertising contest of the 2026 cycle, with newly formed political committees adding millions more while delaying disclosure of who finances them. The spending surge involves groups linked to President Donald Trump’s political network, Elon Musk, the Koch network and Senate Republican leadership, according to federal filings and advertising data reviewed by Reuters.
The influx is significant not because it establishes where Ohio voters will ultimately land, but because it shows how outside organizations are rapidly escalating their effort to shape a Nov. 3 special election with implications for control of the U.S. Senate. AdImpact estimates that about $298 million has already been spent on advertising in the Husted-Brown contest, more than in any other Senate race this cycle. Recent polls cited by Reuters have measured Brown ahead by roughly three to five percentage points, but those surveys are snapshots of voter preferences at the time they were conducted and do not determine the election outcome.
Federal Election Commission filings through Wednesday showed the Senate Leadership Fund and five other Republican-aligned super PACs accounting for the roughly $14 million advertising push over the previous week. No Going Back PAC, which Reuters described as closely tied to Trump’s MAGA Inc. network, was the largest participant, spending $6.7 million on television, digital and mail advertising over Sept. 10-11. AdImpact estimates the organization has spent $13.4 million in Ohio and more than $92 million nationally on midterm advertising.
Musk’s America PAC and Americans for Prosperity Action, backed by the Koch political network, are also advertising against Brown. The messages have targeted the former senator over issues including transgender rights and his record on bank bailouts, while seeking to associate him with the Democratic Socialists of America. Those descriptions are campaign arguments advanced in political advertising rather than independent findings about Brown’s positions or affiliations.
Brown’s campaign has responded by portraying the outside spending as an effort by wealthy interests to protect Husted. Campaign manager Patrick Eisenhauer accused corporations and billionaires of spending heavily to help the Republican senator, while a Husted spokesperson declined Reuters’ request for comment on the latest spending. Democratic-aligned advertising has also targeted Husted, including messages linking him politically to Ohio’s 2019 nuclear-power bailout law, although Husted has not been charged with or accused of wrongdoing in the bribery scandal surrounding that legislation.
A less visible part of the Republican advertising surge is drawing particular scrutiny from campaign-finance researchers. OpenSecrets research director Brendan Glavin described some newly registered committees as “pop-up” PACs because their registration dates allow them to spend substantial sums before publicly identifying their donors in regular disclosure reports. Ohio Flyer PAC and Buckeyes PAC spent more than $3 million combined during the past week, according to Reuters, but their donor information is not expected to become public until mid-October, only weeks before Election Day.
Both organizations share a treasurer with a pro-Trump super PAC created during the 2016 presidential campaign by then-Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort and billionaire Republican donor Tom Barrack, Reuters reported. That organizational connection does not by itself establish who currently finances Ohio Flyer PAC or Buckeyes PAC, and their undisclosed donors should not be inferred before the required filings become available. The immediate campaign-finance issue is therefore one of timing and transparency: millions of dollars can influence the public advertising environment before voters learn who supplied the money.
The outside spending is arriving as Brown maintains a substantial fundraising advantage at the candidate level. Federal Election Commission records show Brown reported approximately $38.57 million in receipts through June 30, compared with about $14.35 million for Husted’s principal campaign committee. Those candidate fundraising totals are separate from independent expenditures by super PACs, which may raise and spend unlimited amounts but legally operate independently of candidate campaigns.
Ohio has become familiar territory for extraordinarily expensive Senate campaigns. Brown’s 2024 contest against Republican Bernie Moreno generated about $486 million in advertising, according to AdImpact data cited by Reuters, setting a record for a non-presidential race. Brown lost that election and is now challenging Husted, who was appointed to the Senate after JD Vance became vice president in 2025; the November special election will determine who serves the remaining two years of Vance’s term.
The latest spending does not answer the unresolved question of whether Ohio voters who rejected Brown in 2024 are prepared to return him to the Senate two years later. It does establish that Republican organizations increasingly view the state as requiring major financial resources, while Brown’s fundraising and the recent polling measurements have kept Democratic investment flowing into a state that has leaned Republican in recent federal elections. Both sides still have weeks of advertising, campaigning and voter persuasion ahead before Ohioans make that decision on Nov. 3.