In a new wide-ranging interview with Politico following his defeat to Republican businessman Bernie Moreno earlier this month, three-term Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown says that he is not ruling out another run for the Senate in 2026."I've not ruled anything out," Brown told Politico when asked if he would have any interest in running for the seat being abandoned by current Republican senator and now Vice President-elect JD Vance. Brown left his answer at that and did not expand any further.Brown has been a senator since 2006, when he defeated then-incumbent Republican Sen. Mike DeWine in a year that heavily favored Democrats nationwide. Brown also won re-election in two other years that were favorable to Democrats, including 2012, when Barack Obama carried the state of Ohio during his re-election bid. Six years later, Brown would again win in 2018 during the midterms in a strong year for Democrats, which rode a wave of success off of widespread backlash to President Donald Trump's first term in office.This year, the political climate proved far less favorable to Brown. After five decades of being one of the nation's most recognizable swing states, Ohio is now a solidly red state, having not voted for a Democrat statewide besides Brown since 2012. On the national level, former President Donald Trump had a decisive win this year in an election that saw the Republican Party presidential candidate win the popular vote for the first time since 2004. In Ohio, Trump also won the largest Republican share of the vote within the state since 1984.Alongside Trump next year, an Ohioan will now be second in command as vice president in the nation for the first time ever, under the watch of current Republican Sen. JD Vance. After a brief but meteoric political career in the Senate, Vance will now be vacating the seat he has held since 2022 to become the second most powerful person in the country.When Vance eventually vacates his Senate seat to become vice president, his replacement will be chosen by DeWine, now Ohio's governor, after previously being the last incumbent to lose a statewide Senate election within the state. DeWine has not yet announced the person that he intends to select to fill Vance's seat. Still, under the law, the pick will only be allowed to serve out two years of Vance's term, where an election to fill out the remaining two years of the six-year term will be held in 2026.Brown has plenty of time to decide whether he will run, as the Ohio Democratic primary will not be held until the spring of 2026. However, if he did decide to run, 2026 could possibly provide more favorable ground for Brown. Whether the same level of backlash emerges to Trump's second term in office as it did in his first is yet to be seen, although traditionally, the president's party has suffered losses in Congress during the midterms in a trend that dates back several decades.Still, even if the 2026 election does tend to be favorable to Democrats nationwide, Ohio is also now a solidly red state in a way that it was not just a few years prior. In a highly polarized nation, 2022 also showed signs of this trend possibly slowing down when Democrats did much better than expected in the midterm elections held that year. Only time will tell what Brown ultimately decides, but regardless of his decision, 2026 is shaping up to be a year that already will have a deflated Ohio Democratic Party facing heavy headwinds to have to overcome as they go into their first election without any statewide representation in a generation. Despite this, if Brown were to decide to run though, as DeWine has proved by winning four statewide elections since his landslide defeat from the Senate in 2006, political comebacks in the state are certainly not impossible.