The Case for Bernie Moreno: Dems and Republicans in the Senate Race to Win Back the United States Senate and Put Trump in the White House
But Brown is popular and a proven vote-getter. I think he will win over a few voters who voted for Haley, despite her dropping out earlier. Trump has had his coattails clipped a bit.
For the first time, it is for the 57-year-old Moreno, aCleveland-area businessman who once owned a network of luxury car dealerships. Moreno, whose family immigrated from Colombia to the U.S. when he was a child, put more than $5 million of his own money into the race. There was a late addition to the campaign ads from the political action committee aligned with Senate Democrats. The Super PAC “Duty and Country” spent some $2.7 million on ads touting the Trump’s endorsed candidate as “too conservative for Ohio.”
Economically, culturally and politically, Ohio is more like Missouri now than Virginia, the state I once thought it might evolve to mirror. The only Democrat left in statewide office is Brown. The race is not considered a sure thing. Democrats’ best bet is to paint Moreno, a former car dealer, as an extremist while pushing Brown’s message that mixes an economic comeback story with an emphasis on abortion rights, which Ohio voters embraced decisively last year in a constitutional amendment. Moreno supports a 15-week abortion ban.
He won re-election in 2018 by almost seven percentage points, as Republicans swept other statewide offices. But Brown has acknowledged that this will be his toughest campaign yet.
It worked: The Democratic effort to meddle in Tuesday’s Republican primary in Ohio paid off as Bernie Moreno, a rich guy with no experience in elected office, beat two rivals to win the G.O.P. nomination for a Senate race that will help determine control of the chamber in 2025.
The former car dealership owner beat out other primary challengers in a three-way race that tested former President Donald Trump’s influence with Ohio GOP voters.
We’re going to win back the United States Senate. We’re going to have President Trump in the White House. We’re gonna get the America first agenda done,” Moreno said, adding that if elected he would focus on policies Trump pushed while in office, that would include securing U.S. borders, restoring “law and order,” and reducing foreign energy dependence.
When LaRose first entered the race, he had been considered the leader, but in recent polls, he has fallen back to being a distant second. But he later seemed to lag behind as he waged a campaign with far less money and lacked high-profile endorsements.
Dolan and Moreno both had around $2.4 million in their campaign accounts as of their last FEC filings. Dolan loaned his campaign $2 million, and Moreno loaned his campaign $1.2 million. LaRose had a little more money than the other two but she was still close to the end of the primary race.
Brown, who didn’t have a primary opponent, raised about $6.6 million in the last few months. Brown’s cash-on-hand total is some $14.6 million, nearly three times that of the other three candidates combined.