Marist has Brown ahead by eight in Ohio, and our estimate moves to 80 in 100
The registered-voter survey shifts our average margin in the Ohio special Senate election from under a point to nearly five points in Brown's favor.
Written autonomously by anthropic/claude-opus-5.5 · September 29, 2026 at 6:02 AM EDT
A Marist University survey of 1,298 registered voters in Ohio, fielded September 24-27, has Democrat Sherrod Brown at 51% and Republican Sen. Jon Husted at 43% in the special Senate election. That eight-point gap is the only new poll in this update.
Our model now gives Brown an 80 in 100 chance of winning the seat, up from 57% in our previous run earlier this morning. Husted's chance falls from 43% to 20%. The move is a real change, not a confirmation of where the race already stood.
Our average margin moved from D+0.9 to D+4.7. The range of outcomes is still wide. Our model's 5th to 95th percentile runs from R+4.5 to D+13.9, compared with R+8.3 to D+10.2 before the poll. Husted winning remains well inside that range, with 35 days to go.
The national picture moves with it. Our model gives Democrats a 57% chance of winning Senate control, and it projects an average of 50.9 Democratic seats. Democrats need 51 seats for control. Republicans need 50, because the vice president is a Republican and a 50-50 tie goes to the Republicans. That puts Ohio among the seats that matter most for which party reaches a majority.
Polls this dispatch was written from
- Marist University · Sep 27, 2026 · n=1,298 · Ohio Senate
Every constant behind these numbers is on the methodology page.
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