Add Sherrod Brown’s name to the growing list of those making noises about 2020.

It would be a grave mistake to discount Brown's prospects both for the nomination and the presidency. This 66-year-old just won a comfortable reelection in a key battleground state that went for Donald Trump by 8 percent in 2016 and saw the GOP capture every statewide position on the ballot this year save his.

According to the Progressive Punch, Brown is the eighth leading liberal in Congress with a rating of 96.3 percent progressive voting record. For comparison, Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has only a 91.5 progressive rating.  Of the top dozen liberals in Congress, all except Brown are from states listed as heavily Democratic. This indicates Brown has meaningful appeal to many average voters.

One of the things that separates Brown from others in his party is that he is a harsh critic of free trade. He was against NAFTA and all the other trade agreements that have hollowed out the Midwest's once formidable manufacturing base. On the matter of trade, Brown is in accord with President Trump. This is a popular position to hold.

In the runup to the 2016 election, Hillary Clinton was considering Sherrod Brown as her running mate. Thankfully with her tone-deaf political instincts, she chose Tim Kaine of Virginia instead. Brown would have resonated in the Midwest far more than either Clinton or Kaine. He could well have made a difference in states narrowly won by Trump like Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, and even Ohio.

The Democratic Party has lost the white working-class vote. Brown could change that. The New York Times described his appearance as rumpled and unvarnished. Brown can walk a factory floor and look and sound like he belongs there as opposed to complete phonies like Cory (Spartacus) Booker or the lightweight Kamala Harris, or Hillary Clinton.

None of this would detract from Brown's appeal to the Left. He is a card-carrying progressive of the highest order. Here is how Mary Taylor, Ohio's current lieutenant governor, describes Brown position on illegal immigration:

"In Ohio, Sen. Sherrod Brown's constant attempts to obstruct the enforcement of our immigration laws is both a disgrace and a danger to law-abiding Ohioans. 

In the decades since Brown has been in Congress, he has blocked efforts to protect America from illegal aliens and backed policies to open our borders further." 

Brown is a defender of ObamaCare. He also wants to expand Medicaid and open Medicare.

Brown is a severe critic of the Trump-Republican tax cuts, claiming that they benefit the rich and not the middle class.

He is also a true believer man-made global warming. 

On right-to-life versus abortion, need you ask?

Expanding his progressive reach, Brown just on Wednesday inserted himself into the Georgia election controversy by saying if the radical Stacey Abrams doesn't win, it means the election was stolen from her. 

With these liberal positions, Brown will have no trouble in tapping into the big money flow from leftist billionaires. If Sherrod Brown is the Democratic candidate in 2020, the danger he poses is that he will have the full support of the Left as well as the ability to peel away some of the white working-class vote.

None of this is to say that Brown can't be defeated. Apart from trade, he's wrong on everything else. But even where Brown is wrong, he has a significant following. And with the media as a cheerleader, any and all issues will be spun in his favor.

The shame of it all is that the Ohio GOP establishment let Sherrod Brown slide in 2018. The party fielded a marginal candidate. It goes to show that it will take a bare-knuckles fighter like Donald Trump to take this liberal down. But even then, Trump will need the enthusiastic support from the entire Republican and conservative base.