Bernie Moreno, the Donald Trump-backed businessman from Ohio, emerged the winner Tuesday of the ugly GOP primary to face Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown.
Moreno will run against Brown in what’s expected to be one of the messiest and most expensive Senate contests in the country. Brown was the last Democrat elected statewide in Ohio, a state that Trump carried twice and that Republicans see as one of their best chances for a Senate majority.
Moreno, 57, defeated state Sen. Matt Dolan, an establishment conservative whose family owns the Cleveland Guardians Major League Baseball team, and Secretary of State Frank LaRose, who struggled to define himself and break out of third place. In the end, it was a blowout — Moreno beat Dolan by nearly 18 percentage points, according to unofficial vote totals.
“We have an opportunity now to retire the old commie, and send him to a retirement home and save this country,” Moreno told a cheering crowd at his election night party in Cleveland.
The outcome suggests that Trump can continue to help his preferred candidates in primaries by endorsing them and then swooping in to get out the vote.
The race was also something of a proxy battle between the Trump and establishment wings of the party — while Moreno had the MAGA cavalry behind him, other players in the Ohio GOP, like former Sen. Rob Portman and current Gov. Mike DeWine, had endorsed Dolan.
The primary, awash in cash from both Dolan and Moreno — who are each independently wealthy — became increasingly bitter and personal in its final days. Moreno’s allies tried to paint Dolan as a liberal who would provide amnesty to undocumented immigrants and raise taxes. And an Associated Press report linked Moreno’s work email address to a 2008 account on a dating website seeking “young guys to have fun with,” causing headaches for a candidate who has campaigned as a social conservative. (Moreno said the account’s existence was a prank by an intern.)
The race generated nearly $50 million in ad spending, according to data from AdImpact. The general election will cost both sides millions more with Democrats’ two-seat Senate majority hanging in the balance.
Trump’s endorsement no doubt helped Moreno, a former luxury car dealer born in Colombia who has never held elected office. Deadlocked in polls just weeks ago, the announcement of a Trump rally for Moreno last weekend seems to have given him the edge he needed to win. “He’s going to be a warrior in Washington,” Trump said Saturday at the rally outside Dayton, as he accused rival Dolan of trying to become “the next Mitt Romney.”
“This is a special day for me, obviously,” Moreno said Saturday. “Imagine that in your wildest dreams that a kid born in Colombia, South America, could stand in Dayton, Ohio, and run for the United States Senate.”
Moreno briefly ran in the 2022 Senate primary against J.D. Vance, but dropped out when it became clear Vance was getting Trump’s endorsement. Dolan finished third in that race.
Democrats might celebrate this outcome. Polls showed Moreno was the weaker Republican against Brown — so much so that a super PAC aligned with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer spent more than $3 million helping Republicans boost Moreno over more moderate challengers.
The Ohio Democratic Party has hammered Moreno’s openness to a federal abortion ban; Ohio voters will be deciding in November whether to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution. They’ve also railed against his opposition to the bipartisan immigration bill, which Senate Republicans opposed and ultimately scuttled out of fear of giving President Joe Biden an election-year win on an issue that’s top of mind for many voters.
“Bernie Moreno has made clear throughout his career and his campaign that he only looks out for himself — not the people of Ohio,” Ohio Democratic Party spokesperson Katie Smith said. “Whether by refusing to pay his employees the overtime they’d earned and deliberately shredding evidence to cover it up, promising to put in place a national abortion ban that would overturn the will of Ohioans, or coming out against the bill to crack down on fentanyl coming from China and Mexico, Moreno has already shown he will not fight for Ohioans.”