After months of speculation and a tour of early primary states, Senator Sherrod Brown has announced he will not seek the Democratic party nomination for President in 2020. 

Brown made the announcement Thursday, saying he believes the Senate is where he can be most effective. 

"I will keep calling out Donald Trump and phony populism. I will keep fighting for all workers across the country. And I will do everything I can to elect a Democratic President and a Democratic Senate in 2020. The best place for me to make that fight is in the United States Senate," Brown said in a statement issued Thursday afternoon. 

Brown had been seen as a strong potential candidate to challenge Trump in 2020, since he's got an image of a populist in a battleground state that Trump won in 2016. In his most recent reelection bid in 2018, Brown won counties like Trumbull that Trump had carried in 2016. 

The other Valley lawmaker who has been mulling a 2020 White House bid, Tim Ryan, has still not announced whether he will enter the race or not. Ryan has said he will make his decision independent of what Brown does, although political insiders have argued that it's unlikely Ryan would run against Brown.