Mr. Brown, the Ohio Democrat who lost his race for re-election last year, is forming the Dignity of Work Institute, which will highlight workers’ struggles.
Sherrod Brown is out of the Senate, but he is not done with politics.
Mr. Brown, the Ohio Democrat who lost his bid for a fourth Senate term last year, announced on Monday that he was forming a nonprofit group called the Dignity of Work Institute. The group, he said in an interview, will aim to illustrate the plight of workers in a country where both major parties have forgotten their concerns.
“Democrats have become seen as the compensate-the-betrayed party,” Mr. Brown said. “You know, you lost your job, we’ll give you some help. And Republicans are the reward-the-winners party. And that’s corporations and the ultrawealthy. Neither party is the make-workers-the-winners party.”
Mr. Brown, 72, fell to defeat last year as President Trump won an overwhelming victory in Ohio, which during the former senator’s 32 years in Congress transformed from a presidential battleground to a Republican stronghold.
Now Mr. Brown, who considered running for president in 2020, is seeking to resuscitate what has long been his signature political issue — the fate of American workers. At the same time, his fellow Democrats are beginning to coalesce around a message of opposition to the billionaires running the federal government.
His new organization will function as a nonpartisan think tank, conducting research about American workers and aiming to illuminate challenges they face in an effort to persuade politicians and the public to pay attention to workers’ needs.
Not that Mr. Brown is necessarily done running for elected office himself.
The famously frumpy Ohioan said he was weighing running for either Senate or governor in his home state next year. Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican, is barred from seeking re-election by term limits, and Senator Jon Husted, a Republican whom Mr. DeWine appointed to fill the seat vacated by Vice President JD Vance, will face voters for the chance to serve the remaining two years of Mr. Vance’s term.