One of the The races to watch next year are the U.S. Senate race from Ohio. While Sen. Sherrod Brown, a Democrat, has the advantage of being in office, he is also quite vulnerable in an increasingly red state. So far, the only Republican to announce a run against Brown is state Sen. Matt Dolan, who announced in January of this year. However, another Republican, businessman Bernie Moreno, will reportedly soon join the race.
Moreno is the second Republican elected In #OHS race to unseat Sherrod Brown. State Sen. Matt Dolan has served in the role since January. Secretary of State Frank LaRose is also considering the offer. https://t.co/Vvk7tXmWWk
— Henry J. Gomez (@HenryJGomez) April 10, 2023
On Tuesday morning, Moreno took to Twitter to announce a “BIG announcement!” will take place on the evening of April 18 in Milford, Ohio.
Ohio deserves a conservative outsider with the courage to fight the DC swamp and always put America first.
So if you’re as fed up with feeble RINOs and corrupt career politicians as I am, join me on April 18 in Milford, Ohio for the BIG announcement! pic.twitter.com/zvqQNDRAEq
— Bernie Moreno (@berniemoreno) April 11, 2023
Moreno ran in the 2022 primary to fill the seat left by another Republican, Sen. Rob Portman, but dropped out. He supported the winner, now Sen. J.D. Vance, who defeated then-Sen. Tim Ryan (D-OH) last November. Moreno has no political experience, but he appears to be using that as an advantage.
Another advantage Moreno has in the race is that he has the ability to self-finance, something highlighted in news leading up to the 2022 primary elections. Some August 2021 Report of the Jewish Insider highlighted how Moreno earned $2.25 million, second only to self-funded Mike Gibbons. Report from Cleveland.comalso in August of that year, reported that “Moreno reported household assets ranging from $20.3 million to $93.1 million.”
As Henry J. Gomez described Moreno in his report for NBC News: :
Moreno is the second prominent GOP candidate to launch a campaign to challenge the party’s nomination Senator Sherrod BrownA Democrat who served three terms and is considered one of the weakest officials in the country. State Senator Matt Dolananother failed 2022 candidate has had room to show off since announcing his candidacy nearly three months ago.
A Colombian native whose family immigrated to the United States when he was a child, Moreno is well-known in Cleveland civic circles, where his business interests range from car dealerships to blockchain technology and he has served on several boards.
There is another potential advantage: Moreno’s ties to former and potentially future President Donald Trump, a popular figure in Ohio who won by about 8 points in 2016 and 2020. Trump endorsed Vance last April, which sent the incumbent senator’s polling numbers skyrocketing and ultimately gave him victories in the primary and general elections. Although Moreno, like Vance, has been critical of Trump in the past, his daughter worked on the Trump campaign and is the wife of Rep. Max Miller (R-OH), whom Trump supported.
As Gomez adds:
Moreno suspended the tender for 2022 came after a meeting with Trump, who had no plans to endorse him and wanted to prevent Dolan — the only candidate who hadn’t aggressively sought his endorsement — from winning a plurality in a crowded field. Moreno was Trump skeptic during the 2016 election, at one point hoping for a “convention miracle,” according to private correspondence obtained by NBC News in 2021.
However, Moreno eventually warmed to Trump and has since become close to the former president. Moreno’s daughter worked on Trump’s re-election campaign and is the wife of Rep. Max Miller of Ohio, another former Trump adviser. And when now – Sen. J.D. Vance, a Trump-backed candidate, advanced to the general election in last year’s race, and Moreno played games with his Democratic opponent, former Republican Tim Ryan, in preparation for the debate.
Kurt Schlichter spoke positively about Moreno in a March 13 City Hall column:
I like Bernie Moreno, the car dealership magnate who quit last time to pave the way for JD Vance. I met him at CPAC. He’s frigid. He has a seat. He and my wife were talking to each other in Spanish and I think they were talking bad about me. His pro-American dream program for immigrants is contagious – it’s real and difficult to counterfeit. This is another candidate in that normal/competent position that voters want right now. Yet there is no apply for communist nonsense. Cool.
Dolan’s weakness is opposing Trump. He finished third in last year’s Republican primary, behind former Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel. Mainstream media outlets saw this as AND bonus Down Dolanaalthough apparently Ohio voters did not. However, Dolan, like Moreno, is also affluent.
In the same column, Kurt spoke out against Dolan by name, adding:
This is the guy who grabbed Trump’s heartstrings in the 2022 primaries and who changed the name of the Cleveland Indians to something stupid instead of telling leftists where to push their Louisville Sluggers. If you’re a affluent guy and you fit in, you’ll always fit in. We don’t need Mitt Romney on the baseball team. We also don’t need multiple retreads. Josh Mandel is a good guy, but after losing so often, his answer should be “No.”
Another candidate likely to enter the race is Secretary of State Frank LaRose. He also supported Vance’s candidacy last year and has the distinction of being the only incumbent secretary of state whom Trump has endorsed in 2022. LaRose he won his race against Democrat Chelsea Clark by 20 points.
While at CPAC in March, LaRose said TheHill “actively” considers escaping. LaRose also mentioned FiveThirtyEight’s Alex Samuels, Geoffrey Skelley and Nathaniel Rakich in March.
As Skelley mentioned, discussing Dolan being the only entrant in the race, “some of the top officials in Ohio they are also watching this raceand they are the ones to watch, especially Secretary of State Frank LaRose, who could be the toughest opponent Brown has grappled with this since he first defeated Mike DeWine for the seat in 2006 (DeWine was a senator then and is now governor). He also mentioned that “although Brown also won in 2018, he faced a lot weak Republican opponent in the then Rep. Jim Renacci. So Brown may not be as great as some people think.”
Rakich called Ohio one of the “top picks for Republicans,” along with West Virginia and Montana. While Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) has yet to announce his intentions, Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT) is indeed running for re-election, which may be Democrats’ best chance in the country.
Ohio is just one state where Republicans have a real chance to expand the Senate in 2024. Democrats gained one seat in 2022, with Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) replacing former Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA), who was retiring.
