- Dignity of work has been the core message for Brown since he won his third Senate term last fall — as his allies like to note, in a state President Donald Trump won decisively in 2016. The sentiment has roots in a Martin Luther King Jr. speech weeks before his assassination and meshes with Brown’s longtime advocacy for blue-collar workers and organized labor. He’s been a staunch opponent of trade pacts such as NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement. And he’s known in Ohio for a populism that predates Trump and lacks the president’s nationalistic fervor.