Nolte: OH Dem Sherrod Brown’s Campaign Spent Thousands on Luxury Dining, Hotels

Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) is in a tough reelection campaign and is still spending thousands on luxury dining and hotels.

During the just-completed financial third quarter, Brown’s reelection campaign raised $5.8 million and spent more than $12,000 on luxury restaurants and more than $4,000 at fancy hotels — two at Martha’s Vineyard.

The Daily Caller, which first reported on Brown’s luxury spree, detailed the expenses.

The senator’s campaign spent a total of $2,294.60 at Bistro Cacao, a French restaurant in Washington, D.C., according to the third quarter filing. During the same period, Brown’s campaign also dropped $2,232.25 for catering and rent at Towne & Oak, a café and private event space in Illinois, and $428.84 for catering at the Centurion Club, an “exclusive club” for Amex’s “top cardmembers” in New York.

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The senator’s campaign also spent thousands on luxury hotels, including two at Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts — $835.31 at the Clarion Inn, rebranded as the Edgar Hotel, accessible only by air or water, as well as $635.57 at the Dockside Inn, according to the FEC. Brown reported spending $2,302.86 at the Loews Regency Hotel, a five star luxury hotel in New York, and $416.97 at The Beatrice, a luxury hotel in Rhode Island.

Meanwhile, Brown is out there playing poor and asking everyday people to chip in $5.00 to his campaign.

All the time, I see Sherrod’s Twitter ads where he play-acts as a working-class guy in a flannel shirt dealing with a tight U.S. Senate race, a regular guy who desperately needs money to keep Ohio Values Ohio Values (or some such thing). But there’s his campaign, spending your five hard-earned dollars in the far-left, elite enclave of Martha’s Vineyard.

Brown may live in Ohio, but his political heart is pure San Francisco.

Currently, three Republicans are vying to replace Brown in 2024. Businessman Bernie Moreno, State Sen. Matt Dolan (who lost to current Republican Sen. J.D. Vance in 2022), and #NeverTrumper and Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose.

One rare truth Sherrod Brown does tell is that he is in a tight race. The most recent polls show Brown losing to Dolan by two points, losing to LaRose by one, and leading Moreno by two.

What should concern Brown most is that he is polling below 50 points against all three. Against Dolan and LaRose, he is mired in the mid-forties. That is not a good place for an incumbent to sit.

Thanks primarily to the Trump phenomenon, which has turned the Republican Party into the party of working-class Americans and those without useless college degrees, Ohio is no longer seen as a swing state. In 2018, Brown won reelection by 6.4 points — 53 to 47 percent. However, that was during a midterm election with a sitting Republican president (Trump). Historical precedent was on Brown’s side. People tend to vote against the party holding the White House during midterms. This coming election will be very different — a presidential election in a state Trump won by eight points in 2020. Two years later, Vance beat Democrat Rep. Tim Ryan for Ohio’s open Senate seat by six points.

With these headwinds, you would think Brown would try to avoid spending thousands of dollars in campaign cash at Martha’s Vineyard, but, if nothing else, Democrats preen with arrogance and contempt for us little people.

John Nolte’s debut novel Borrowed Time (Bombardier Books) is available today. You can read an exclusive excerpt here and a review of the novel here.