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Sen. Sherrod Brown will skip the Democratic National Convention for the first time since at least 1996: VERIFY

Brown's campaign said this is not related to Vice President Kamala Harris's presidential candidacy, and the senator had planned months ago to be in Ohio next week.

CLEVELAND — With the November election getting closer, all eyes are on Ohio and its hotly contested Senate race between Democratic incumbent Senator Sherrod Brown and Republican challenger Bernie Moreno.

THE CLAIM

Recently, Brown made news by saying he wouldn’t be at the Democratic National Convention (DNC), and CNN quoted him as saying, “I often skip conventions.”

SOURCES

As we VERIFY whether that’s true, our sources are:

  • CNN,
  • Cleveland.com,
  • NBC News, 
  • the DNC,
  • C-SPAN, 
  • Sen. Brown’s social media account, and
  • Sen. Brown's campaign.

EXPLANATION

The DNC happens every four years timed up with presidential elections, so we’ll look at every DNC since Sen. Brown started representing Ohio in Washington, DC in 1993.

Cleveland.com’s Andrew Tobias confirmed that state news coverage reported Brown being at the DNC in 1996, 2000 and 2004.

NBC News reporting shows he was a speaker at the 2008 DNC in Denver, and a social media post from Brown shows he was at the 2012 DNC in Charlotte.

Brown spoke at the 2016 DNC in Philadelphia, and he appeared in a video featured in the virtual DNC in 2020, which was shared on C-SPAN.

All of this shows that up until now, Brown has either been at or been a part of every DNC since at least 1996.

We asked Brown’s campaign about this apparent discrepancy, and they shared an extended audio clip of his quote from the CNN interview. Here's a transcription of that clip:

Reporter: "And you will not, will you go to the convention?"

Brown: “I’m not going to the convention. I often skip conventions. I mean, I’ll go to conventions maybe a day sometimes. I don’t plan to go.”

ANSWER

So we can VERIFY that Brown’s partial quote saying “I often skip conventions” that was included in CNN's story needs context.

The extended clip includes the Senator explaining what he meant, while confirming that he doesn’t plan to be at the DNC at all, this year.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Reeves Oyster from Brown's campaign told me:

"We've been planning to be in Ohio for months and Sherrod is looking forward to hearing from Ohioans in Youngstown, Toledo, Cleveland, Chillicothe, and Sandusky next week to discuss his record fighting for the Dignity of Work."

To further clarify, sitting this one out isn't about the presidential candidate. 

The campaign said the senator endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris after President Joe Biden dropped out of the race and he supports her candidacy.

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