With his gravelly voice and his lack of senatorial sheen — even in a well-pressed suit, he somehow radiates rumpledness — Sherrod Brown could have wandered into the Senate from Depression-era proletarian literature. The Ohio Democrat’s populist persona is undiminished by his Yale degree. But, then, Norman Thomas, the Socialist Party’s presidential candidate six times, was Princeton Class of 1905. During the workers’ uprising, martinis will be served at 6 p.m.

Last month, Brown, 66, became just the fifth Ohio senator since the popular election of senators began in 1914 to achieve a third term, winning by six percentage points in a state Donald Trump carried by eight points, a state no Republican has lost while winning the presidency. Brown did 20 points better than Hillary Clinton’s 2016 results in Appalachian Ohio and the industrial Mahoning Valley, and 15 points better in Lucas County, an autoworkers’ stronghold. If Democrats are looking for a lefty who can win in 2020, they should look at Brown as seriously as he is looking at running.