Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown says he thinks his state won't have a problem counting ballots on November 3, and he's predicting a victory for Democratic nominee Joe Biden in the presidential election. A recent CBS News Battleground Tracker poll shows a close race in Ohio, with President Trump leading Biden by just 1 percentage point.
"It's clear Trump is afraid he's going to lose Ohio this time," Brown, a Democrat, told CBSN anchor Elaine Quijano in an interview that aired Wednesday on "Red & Blue." "I think he's right, that Joe Biden will win the state and election night will not be as long as people are predicting it will be, and that Trump's antics after the election to try to overturn the election will fall on deaf ears."
Some experts have warned that due to an increase in mail-in ballots this year, results may not be known on election night.
Brown said Ohio is a state "where we do it right," saying that at least two million people have requested absentee ballots and likely around a million will vote early.
"The Board of Elections has those ballots ready to put in the counter" on election night, he said. "I would assume by 10 or 11 o'clock, we'll know a lot about whether Ohio's really close, or whether it's not close."
President Trump has repeatedly claimed that mail-in voting leads to fraud and pointed to a mistake in Ohio, where nearly 50,000 voters were sent incorrect absentee ballots, as evidence. But Brown disputed that, saying the mistake is not fraud and is "being fixed."
"The contractor for the Board of Elections made a mistake. A mistake is being fixed. It's not partisan, it's not even bipartisan," he said. "It was a mistake that will have no bearing on the election."
Brown accused Mr. Trump of "looking at any mistake as a chance to say the election's rigged."
The senator, who previously served as secretary of state of Ohio, assured voters that mail-in voting is "fair" and "honest."
"Elections are run bipartisanly by elections officials. There is a long history of safe and efficient and well-protected absentee, mail-in voting," he said. "Nobody that knows what they're talking about is saying that this is rigged or fraud."
Brown was also critical of Mr. Trump's response to the coronavirus pandemic and his rhetoric about the virus. More than 216,000 Americans have died from COVID-19 and there have been over 7.8 million confirmed cases in the United States since the pandemic began.
"I saw the president dancing at one of his rallies as he tried to deflect blame for 220,000 people dying under his watch in the highest unemployment we've faced in this country in my lifetime," Brown said. "I would prefer a somber-minded president who told us the truth and directly took responsibility for the failures combatting the coronavirus and his colossal failures in building the economy."
The senator said he believes the president is "desperate."
"The president knows he's going to lose. Mitch McConnell, the Senate leader, knows the Republicans are going to lose the Senate," he said.