It was one of the most bitter and expensive races in the country.
Tuesday night Senator Sherrod Brown won a second term defeating Republican State Treasurer Josh Mandel.
Wednesday morning the incumbent Democrat says he hopes his race results in changes to campaign rules.
During a stop inside the Ohio Democratic Party Headquarters in Columbus, Senator Sherrod Brown stopped to thank volunteers for their support. He calls this race the hardest race of his career because of the amount of money Republicans and special interest groups spent campaigning against him.
The morning after winning his second term in the Senate, Senator Brown is moving on from the bitter race with Mandel.
"I've stood up for the middle class and I think the voters responded to that," says Sen. Brown. "That's my commitment for the next six years."
Tuesday night Senator Brown took the stage in the ballroom of the Hilton Hotel in Downtown Columbus in front of hundreds of supporters.
Senator Brown told the crowd in his victory speech that his win is a win for the middle class.
"This race was about the resurgence of Ohio manufacturing," says Sen. Brown.
Then the Senator, who has a normally raspy voice, lost his voice.
A sip of water didn't help so his wife Connie took over.
"I can't believe I'm reading somebody else's writing," says Connie, a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist.
She read the remainder of the speech referencing the 40 million dollars that Republicans and special interest groups spent trying to defeat her husband.
"They didn't know that you, our fellow Ohioans, could not be bought," says Connie.
With a clearer voice Wednesday morning, Senator Brown says he hopes his race sparks change.
"The significance of this victory was that it might make some of my colleagues a little less intimidated by this outside money," says Brown. "It might make the outside money, as typically sleazy as it is, a little more reluctant to come into a state."
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