Husted Campaign Fires Political Director Over Nazi Photo, Rhodesia Playlist

Sen. Jon Husted's campaign fired its political director on Sept. 11 after reports surfaced that the 25-year-old aide had used a photograph of Nazi SS soldiers as a Facebook profile picture and maintained a public playlist devoted to songs about white-minority-ruled Rhodesia, the second time in two months that reporters, rather than the campaign's own vetting, have uncovered damaging material about a senior member of the Ohio Republican's team.

Stephen Woytek had been in the job only a few weeks. Husted's campaign said it moved within hours of learning the details. The episode has become the latest strain on an already tight Senate race in a state both parties consider central to control of the chamber.

What happened

Woytek joined the Husted for Senate campaign committee in August as political director. Journalists reviewing his social media history found that in 2018, at age 16, he had changed his Facebook profile photo to an image identified as soldiers of the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler division, a unit that began as Adolf Hitler's personal bodyguard corps, according to reporting summarized by Raw Story. A separate Spotify account bearing his name and photograph hosted a playlist titled "Tales From Rhodesia," featuring songs commemorating the former white-minority-ruled state that became Zimbabwe after a guerrilla war and a transition to Black-majority rule in 1980; one track on the list contained a racial slur, and additions to the playlist appeared to have been made recently.

Husted's campaign said in a statement that it acted the same day it learned of the posts: "Sen. Husted demands better of those who represent him. Upon learning about the social media posts today, Sen. Husted made the immediate decision to part ways." Woytek offered his own account of the photograph, saying he participates in historical re-enactments and rejects Nazi ideology: "I want to be unequivocal: I reject the racist and antisemitic ideology the SS and Nazi Germany represented. I believe it is important to educate our younger generations, which is why I participate in historical reenactments." He did not address the Rhodesia playlist directly, according to the Yahoo News account of his response.

The numbers

The firing lands 51 days before the Nov. 3 general election that will decide who finishes the remaining two years of the Senate term once held by JD Vance. Woytek's tenure as political director lasted roughly four weeks. He is the second staffer to leave the campaign in about two months: in July, Andrew Havas resigned as the campaign's volunteer Franklin County chair after NBC News asked about a 2009 case in which he had been charged with sexual misconduct involving a 15-year-old and pleaded guilty to a reduced misdemeanor assault charge, serving 90 days in the Mahoning County jail. The campaign said at the time that "Mr. Havas did not disclose his history to the campaign," and that it "immediately accepted his resignation as a campaign volunteer," according to Raw Story's account of that episode.

Public polling of the contest between Husted and Democrat Sherrod Brown has swung within the margin of error for months. An Emerson College poll released this summer put Husted ahead of Brown by six points, while other surveys in August found Brown leading by roughly the same margin, underscoring how close and closely watched the race remains heading into the fall.

How the seat became a battleground

Husted has held the seat since January 2025, when Gov. Mike DeWine appointed him to fill the vacancy created when Vance resigned to become vice president. Husted, then Ohio's lieutenant governor, had been widely expected to run for governor in 2026 before accepting the Senate appointment instead. He is now seeking a full term against Brown, the Democrat he effectively replaced in the Senate's political lineage — Brown lost his own Senate seat to Vance in 2024 after three terms and is attempting a comeback in the special election that will fill out the remainder of Vance's unexpired term. Official biographical and committee information for the senator is posted on his Senate office website, and his campaign's fundraising activity is filed with federal regulators through the Federal Election Commission's candidate records.

Ohio has trended Republican in recent statewide races, but Brown's decades of name recognition and the seat's status as an open contest for a full term have made national Democrats view it as one of their few plausible pickup opportunities this cycle. That has raised the stakes around any misstep inside the Husted operation, and it has given Brown's campaign an opening to frame the staffing failures as evidence of a deeper problem with judgment rather than an isolated personnel mistake.

Reaction

Brown's campaign moved quickly to tie the two incidents together. Spokesperson Lauren Chou said in a statement:

"They say you are the company you keep, and Jon Husted has chosen to surround himself with Nazi sympathizers and pedophiles. Both records were public. It's clear there is no low that Husted won't stoop to. Ohioans deserve a leader who reflects their values and will fight to lower costs — that's why they're supporting Sherrod Brown."

The Ohio Democratic Party also publicized the Woytek findings, framing the hire as a vetting lapse. Husted's campaign has not detailed what its screening process for senior hires involves or whether it plans to change that process after two consecutive reporter-driven departures. The campaign's public response in both cases has been limited to brief statements confirming the personnel change rather than an explanation of how the material went undetected before hiring.

Woytek, for his part, said he did not want his personal history to become a distraction from the senator's campaign, according to accounts of his statement circulated after the story broke, and he has not disputed that the SS photograph and the Rhodesia playlist were his.

What happens next

With just over seven weeks until the general election, the Husted campaign faces the immediate task of filling the political director role during the most intensive stretch of a competitive statewide race, while managing continued scrutiny of how the position was filled in the first place. Neither national party has indicated the episode will change the fundamental dynamics of a contest both sides already regarded as one of the tightest Senate races in the country. But the back-to-back departures give Brown's campaign fresh material for a closing argument built around character and judgment rather than policy, in a race where the two campaigns otherwise remain divided chiefly over cost-of-living issues. Whether the story has staying power with voters, as opposed to activists and reporters already engaged with the race, is likely to become clearer as both campaigns release their next rounds of advertising in the final weeks before Election Day.