Jon Husted (R-OH) was appointed to the U.S. Senate in January 2025 to fill JD Vance's seat and is running in the 2026 special election. He and his spouse hold individual stocks (including up to $15,000 of Intel held by his wife, a company he helped recruit to Ohio as lieutenant governor), and he has declined to support a congressional stock-trading ban, drawing conflict-of-interest criticism; reported in-office trading volume appears modest. His record carries notable accountability flags predating and overlapping his Senate tenure: a paid Heartland Bank board seat taken while still lieutenant governor (with a roughly $27,000 payout on resignation), longstanding ties to Ohio's $60M FirstEnergy/HB6 bribery scandal (he has testified but not been charged), and a 2026 Senate ethics complaint over a senior aide who kept consulting for a Columbus lobbying firm. By contrast, his vote-attendance record is essentially perfect (0 missed of ~832 votes), and no evidence of campaign-fund personal use surfaced. Most adverse items are correlation or appearance-based rather than proven self-dealing, and much partisan sourcing (Ohio Democratic Party) should be weighed against the underlying primary records (FEC, financial disclosures, court testimony, NOTUS/Ohio Capital Journal reporting).
Public record
In Congress since
2025
Committees
Appropriations Environment and Public Works Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Small Business and Entrepreneurship Senate Special Committee on Aging
Missed votes, 119th Congress
0.0% (0 of 907; median member 1.9%)
Campaign money, 2025–26 cycle
$14M raised · 16% from PACs & committees · $9.4M cash on hand FEC ↗
H.R. 7008 bans new stock purchases by members, spouses and dependents; it doesn't force sales of existing holdings. The Senate vote was on the version paired with the SAVE Act, which is why no Democrat voted yes. Full breakdown →
Amounts are the ranges members must report, not exact values. The STOCK Act requires a report within 45 days of a trade; "late" counts days past that deadline, measured to the filing date.
How the score breaks down
Stock self-tradinghousehold / spouse
25% weight
30
Husted and his spouse hold individual stocks; STOCK Act filings show modest reported trade volume (cited up to ~$15K range). His wife holds up to $15,000 in Intel, a chipmaker Husted helped recruit to Ohio as lieutenant governor, and he met with Intel about its Ohio project while in office (appearance of access). He declined to back a congressional stock-trading ban. No evidence of large-volume trading, documented suspicious timing, or market-beating returns; the Heartland Bank ~$60K stock event stems from a board-merger payout, not active congressional trading.
No reliable public analysis of Husted's net-worth growth during his ~17-month Senate tenure (since Jan 2025) beyond salary/market was found. Pre-office wealth and his prior Heartland board income are not scored here. Insufficient data to assess in-office enrichment.
Money → action alignmentcorrelation, not proof of any quid-pro-quo
20% weight
45
Correlation, not proof. Husted's Senate campaign relies heavily on large individual gifts and PACs (PACs ~52% of funds; only ~584 unique itemized donors), with top corporate PAC givers including GE Aerospace, General Dynamics, Centene, CSX, and NADA ($10K each). Separately, he has longstanding ties to the FirstEnergy/HB6 $60M bribery scandal: $3.5M+ in dark money (incl. a secret $1M FirstEnergy contribution) backed his 2018 ticket, and his calendar/court testimony show contacts with figures accused in the scheme around HB6's drafting. He has not been charged. These show concentrated industry money and aligned access, not proven vote-for-cash.
No public reporting or FEC findings of Husted using campaign or leadership-PAC funds for personal benefit were found. Absent evidence, not penalized.
Revolving door & family
15% weight
55
A May 2026 Senate Ethics complaint targets Husted and senior adviser/counsel Sean Dunn, who collected $22,652 in consulting fees from Statehouse Impact Group LLC, a Columbus lobbying firm Dunn founded and renamed days before joining Husted's office in March 2025 — i.e., a senior aide maintained a paid lobbying-firm relationship while serving the senator. Ethics watchdogs (Revolving Door Project) called the arrangement unethical. Dunn previously lobbied on utilities/opioids with clients tied to the FirstEnergy scandal. No documented family-member lobbying tied to his office was found.
Husted has a near-perfect attendance record: GovTrack shows 0 of ~832 roll-call votes missed (0.0%) from Jan 2025 to June 2026, among only a few senators with perfect 2025 attendance. He fundraises heavily (~$1.1M in Q4 2025; ~$2.6M+ cash on hand) for the 2026 special election, but heavy fundraising alongside full vote attendance indicates no job-vs-fundraising tradeoff. Score reflects only routine campaign intensity, not neglected duties.
Sources behind this score: 5 news reporting · 2 data aggregator · 1 reference database. Score = weighted average of the components that have data; the 2 without sourced evidence are excluded, never counted against the member. Methodology →
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