A Republican Senate ad that blames Sherrod Brown for a deadly April crash on an Ohio interstate is drawing scrutiny after FactCheck.org said there is no evidence linking Brown’s immigration votes to the suspect. The spot, which started airing in August and mostly ran on streaming TVs or devices, turns a family tragedy into a campaign attack in the Ohio Senate race.
The ad says Brown “opened our borders to dangerous illegals” and that “the consequences were deadly.” It was run by the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which is targeting Brown as he challenges Republican Sen. Jon Husted. FactCheck.org published its review on August 25 and updated it on August 27, sharpening the focus on whether the ad’s central claim can be supported.
The crash itself was devastating. On April 11, a semi-truck driven by Modou Ngom hit a car from behind in Delaware County, setting off a multi-car crash in which some vehicles caught fire. Luke Soposki, Lynnea Soposki and their 1-year-old child were killed. Ngom has been charged with multiple counts of aggravated vehicular homicide and vehicular assault.
What the ad leaves out matters as much as what it says. The Ohio Department of Public Safety said Ngom entered the country sometime in the 1990s, but it is unclear how or where he came in. The agency also said he used different names to obtain a driver’s license and later citizenship, and that he appears to have used multiple names and dates of birth to obtain state and federal identification. That word — appears — is doing a lot of work in a case now being used as a political weapon.
Brown served in the U.S. Senate from 2007 to 2025, but the question now is narrower than his record. It is whether a deadly crash on Interstate 71 can be fairly pinned on his immigration votes. FactCheck.org says no evidence ties those votes to Ngom, even as Ohio Sen. Bernie Moreno has asked federal agencies to investigate how Ngom entered the United States and whether fraudulent immigration documents were used. The answer to that question could shape how far the ad goes, and whether the crash remains a campaign talking point or becomes something harder to sell.
