Twelve years ago, the Ohio Fraternal Order of Police broke a 24-year streak of endorsing the GOP candidate for U.S. Senate by instead backing U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, a Democrat, in his first reelection bid.
This year, the union broke with tradition again. Though its political screening committee recommended putting weight behind Brown as it has before, a slim majority of rank-and-file members shot that down.
“It was a close vote, but it became a no endorsement because they did not vote for the recommendation of Sherrod Brown,” said Mike Weinman, government affairs director for the Ohio FOP.
Historically, Weinman said the union has regularly endorsed politicians affiliated with both parties. It’s unusual to decline an endorsement in a race of this scale, he said, but consensus isn't always easy.
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“We're a large organization with 23,000 members, so not everyone's going to agree. I don't always agree with my wife. There are things that we will agree on and not agree on,” he said in an interview.
Brown hasn’t shied away from touting his record with law enforcement, even absent the big endorsement. Wood County Sheriff Mark Wasylyshyn has been all over television screens across Ohio in an ad airing since July.
“I'm a Republican, have been my whole life,” Wasylyshyn says in the ad. “I don't agree with Sherrod Brown on everything. But when it comes to fighting fentanyl, no one has done more than Sherrod Brown.”
Bernie Moreno, Brown's political newcomer opponent, is touting law enforcement love on the trail as well.
“I'll see his two sheriffs and raise him 31,” Moreno said at a press conference last month he held with several sheriffs, who were all Republicans.
The car-dealer and entrepreneur turned candidate, who clinched the nomination earlier this year with former President Donald Trump’s endorsement, called the FOP Ohio vote an insult to Brown.
“That should be a wake-up call to Sherrod Brown,” Moreno said. “He only cares about law enforcement when he's up for reelection.”
But the lion’s share of labor endorsements are still going to Brown this cycle.
Dorsey Hager, executive secretary-treasurer of the Columbus/Central Ohio Building & Construction Trades Council, was one of several local union leaders at a September press conference bashing Moreno over plans to construct a car dealership north of Columbus. Behind them, basking in the sun, was a quintessential union mascot: the fat cat inflatable.
“Sherrod Brown, whether you agree or disagree with him, and obviously as union members and pro-worker representatives, we agree with him almost 100% of the time,” Hager said then. “But even if you do disagree with him, he's going to give you the straight stuff and give you the truth, and Bernie Moreno has shown that he's definitely not going to do that.”
Paul Sracic, a Youngstown State University political science professor, said it's all pretty predictable. “Sherrod Brown is kind of a throwback Democrat,” Sracic said in an interview.
Active union advocacy is predictable for Brown, maybe, but Sracic said Democrats nationwide are seeing erosion among the organized labor that once reliably backed them. Union involvement, period, has been declining for decades, according to U.S. Department of Labor data.
Still, Sracic said he believes there’s an affinity among some voters for unions, whether it's a familial tie or some other connection.
“In the end, I think you're going to see a very close race, and who knows whether these endorsements could make a difference,” he said. “We have this tiny sliver, I think, of undecided voters.”
And he said he believes undecided voters are often—though not always—unengaged voters, where that connection could make a difference.
