This year, as every year during the election campaign, the economy is a priority for voters and candidates in Ohio.
Bernie Moreno, a Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in Ohio, regularly talks about how steep McDonald’s is and how impressed one is when they see a grocery bill.
“And you asked the cashier if you added something by mistake?” Moreno told supporters at an event in Chillicothe this month, “Because there’s no way the groceries I just bought could be priced like that.”
“Look at the price of steak and chicken and pork, right?” he added, “It’s so high that you look at it and think, you know, maybe we should have cereal for dinner tonight.”
When it comes to economic appeals, he… sermon to the choirIn Chillicothe, his reference to the cost of meat was met with wide eyes and nodding heads. After campaign events, participants regularly bring up the cost of groceries or worry about how their children will raise their own families burdened by higher mortgage interest.
“The real American dream,” Moreno said in February, “is that you can go to a good high school, you can graduate, you can get a good job. You can get married, you can afford a house, you can afford a car. You can afford to have kids. Those kids can go to good schools in safe communities. And then you can retire debt-free, and the government is in the background.”
“This is the American dream that we’re going to restore,” Moreno insisted. But his financial disclosures paint a picture of a person far removed from the kinds of concerns expressed by his supporters.
Despite economic headwinds like higher interest rates, entities tied to Moreno have purchased five homes in the past year. He was also involved in the purchase of a nearly 25-acre parcel of undeveloped land next to a popular outlet mall in Sunbury, Ohio.
Meanwhile, Moreno was able to loan his campaign $4.5 million — $1.5 million of which came from CF Bank. The campaign’s latest quarterly report, covering April through June, shows he hasn’t started repaying his pledges from supporters, but his August financial disclosure statement doesn’t mention the loan.
Matryoshka dolls
In 2024, Bernie Moreno reported earning just $15,000 in salary, but if elected, he’d likely be one of the wealthiest men serving in Congress due to his business holdings. Quiver Quantitative tracks politicians’ estimated net worths through the STOCK Act’s disclosure requirements. Four U.S. senators have surpassed the $100 million mark since the data was released. Moreno would be the fifth, they estimated.
Despite his and his wife’s finances being disclosed, Moreno’s exact net worth remains unclear. Financial disclosure requires candidates and elected officials to list their assets, but the value of those assets is presented as a range — which widens as the value increases.
Adding up his assets, Moreno lists assets worth at least $38 million or as much as $172.7 million. His reported liabilities are $2.75 million on the low end or $11.5 million on the high end.
The report is further complicated by the parade of business entities arranged like nesting dolls within the family trust. Hyperbole Investments has stakes in technology companies based in Ohio and Israel. M6 Realty owns a $1 million to $5 million building in Middleburg, Ohio, that earned between $100,000 and $1 million in rent. M7 Realty’s vacant lot in Hudson, Ohio, earned between $15,000 and $50,000 in rent, and M20 Realty paid $9.5 million for a Delaware County site near the Tangier Outlet Mall.
Ohio Republican Senate candidate Bernie Moreno takes anti-immigration, pro-oil message on tour
In Moreno’s 2023 report, Aguila Calva Properties (which means bald eagle in Spanish) owned a condo in Washington, D.C., and Kylo Properties owned a home in Avon, Ohio. This year, entities with similar names have bought two up-to-date homes. Aguila Calva Properties Ohio bought a $675,000 home in Westlake on July 1 of this year. Kylo Properties Columbus bought a $1.2 million home north of New Albany in June with a golf simulator in the basement.
Butterfly Properties previously reported owning a New York City apartment, but this year the company reported another property in Eastchester, New York. The $2.2 million home has an elevator and a wine cellar with space for more than 1,500 bottles. Similarly, in 2023, Pangolin Properties reported owning a Columbus apartment, but since June of this year it has owned a $612,000 home in Dixon, California.
The most valuable up-to-date piece of real estate is a Coconut Grove, Fla., condo owned by Live More, LLC, valued at $5 million to $25 million. That’s in addition to a previously reported and similarly priced home across Biscayne Bay on Key Largo. Moreno owns a 43% stake in the company, according to records, and the property has generated between $50,000 and $100,000 in rent.
Meanwhile, in 2023, Moreno reported owning an undeveloped plot of land in Zapotal, Costa Rica, through a company called Yellowstone. AP reported that Yellowstone is a private equity firm tied to a construction company owned by Moreno’s brother. That land no longer appears on Moreno’s disclosure, but his holdings in Yellowstone have grown significantly. Last year, he reported holdings worth $500,000 to $1 million that generated more than $71,000. In the current report, he says holdings worth $1 million to $5 million have generated more than $180,000.
Who owns these companies?
Even complicated ownership chains don’t necessarily tell the whole story. In many of these entities, Moreno’s disclosure says he and his wife own just 1% of the business. Still, Moreno lists himself as the “manager” of the entities in a separate section of his disclosure.
Despite listing himself as owning just 1 percent of Live More, LLC, which bought a Coconut Grove condo for more than $5 million, Florida business records show Live More has been registered in Florida since 2017. Bernie Moreno is listed as its manager and registered agent. The company’s primary address is the family home in Key Largo.
Moreno did not respond to a series of questions about why he structured his holdings this way and who owns the other 98 percent of the companies. In general, Ohio business records are not very helpful, but preliminary documents for Pangolin Properties list his son, Adam Moreno. In addition to Live More, four entities have purchased homes in the past year. Moreno has four children.
In comparison
Moreno’s opponent in November also released his financial disclosure this month, but the timeline for Ohio Democratic U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown is different. While Moreno’s starting and ending points are tied to when he became a candidate, incumbents file disclosures based on the calendar year. Brown’s latest filing covers 2023.
The primary source of income for him and his wife is Brown’s congressional salary. He also reports about $28,000 in retirement income from the state of Ohio. As for assets, the couple has between $484,000 and $1.16 million — most of it from retirement or pension funds that they don’t appear to have tapped yet. Reported liabilities include two mortgages that range from $200,000 to $500,000.
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