Moreno will defeat Brown in Ohio, CNN projects, in key pickup for GOP

By Simone Pathe, CNN

(CNN) — Republican Bernie Moreno will defeat Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown, CNN projects, a key pickup for the GOP in a state that’s been trending its way and putting the GOP one step closer to securing the Senate majority.

The three-term incumbent was already the last remaining Democrat in nonjudicial statewide office in the Buckeye State, and his defeat is yet another sign of how down ballot races are increasingly moving in the same direction as the top of the ticket with fewer ticket-splitters.

Moreno, a Cleveland car dealership owner, leaned heavily into his endorsement from former President Donald Trump in a state that backed him by 8 points in both 2016 and 2020. Moreno emerged as the GOP nominee earlier this year after Democrats helped prop him up in the primary, believing he’d be the weakest opponent.

The Republican tried to nationalize the race, trying to tie Brown — a progressive populist first elected to the Senate in 2006 — to Vice President Kamala Harris on immigration and inflation. Moreno’s GOP allies also tried hitting Brown over transgender athletes in an effort to cast the senator as too liberal for the state. (Brown and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee went up with a response ad on the issue that says the senator agrees with GOP Gov. Mike DeWine that “these decisions should be made by local sports leagues, not politicians.”)

Moreno trailed in public polling of the race for most of the year, although those numbers began to tighten as GOP voters consolidated around him in the final weeks before Election Day.

He was able to overcome attacks over abortion, which was a major theme of Democrats’ messaging against him, especially after he made comments at a town hall suggesting that some suburban women were single-issue voters and questioning why women older than 50 would care about the topic. (Moreno’s campaign said he had been “clearly making a tongue-in-cheek joke.”) Democrats seized on those remarks, arguing that Moreno was out of step with Ohioans, who just last year approved a ballot measure enshrining abortion rights in the state constitution with 57% of the vote.

Brown’s significant fundraising strength allowed him to reserve advertising at the more favorable candidate rate and dominate the airwaves over the summer. But Moreno had significant outside firepower from GOP groups that helped boost his candidacy in the fall.

The race was the most expensive congressional contest on record, according to data from ad tracking firm AdImpact.

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