COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Republicans prevailed Tuesday in a must-win Senate race in Ohio, as Trump-backed Cleveland businessman Bernie Moreno defeated Democratic U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown to help shift control of the chamber to the GOP.
With spending that hit $500 million, it was the most expensive Senate race this year and perhaps in U.S. history.
Moreno, 57, who was born in Colombia, will be the first Latino to represent Ohio in the Senate. He won in the Republican-leaning state with a campaign that cast Brown as “too liberal for Ohio,” barraging airwaves with sometimes misleading and occasionally false claims about Brown’s votes related to immigration and transgender athletes. Moreno also worked successfully to tie Brown, a third-term incumbent, to President Joe Biden and his vice president, Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris, on border security.
During an acceptance speech in Cleveland, Moreno pledged to serve all Ohioans and to work to win over those who voted against him.
“We talked about wanting a red wave. I think what we have tonight is a red, white and blue wave,” he said. “Because what we need in the United States of America is leaders in Washington, D.C., that actually put the interests of American citizens above all else. We're tired of being treated like second-class citizens in our own country. We're tired of leaders that think we're garbage and we're tired of being treated like garbage.”
His win was lauded by the National Rifle Association and Ohio Right to Life, which both backed his campaign.
Brown’s defeat marked another win for a candidate endorsed by the former president, whose backing in the state lifted “Hillbilly Elegy” author JD Vance into politics and on to become his vice presidential running mate. Trump appeared in ads for Moreno in the final days of the campaign, and the candidate thanked him Tuesday and praised him as the best president of his generation.
“Thank you for your sacrifices that you've made for this country,” Moreno said, addressing Trump. “This country owes Donald Trump a debt of gratitude. And the Senator JD Vance. Ohio loves you, man, Ohio loves you. I love you.”
He called Vance a “brilliant pick” for vice president, and joked of quickly becoming Ohio's senior senator if the Trump-Vance ticket wins the presidency.
About 4 in 10 voters in Ohio’s Senate election said that party control of the chamber was the single most important factor in their vote, while about half said it was an important factor, according to AP VoteCast, an expansive survey of more than 3,700 voters in the state. Voters favoring Brown were as likely to say this as voters for Moreno.
Brown, 71, one of Ohio’s longest serving and best known politicians, had sought to appeal to Trump crossover voters by emphasizing his work with presidents of both parties and to woo independents and Democrats by promoting his efforts to boost middle class workers.
He told supporters Tuesday night that his beliefs in the dignity of work and the power of people over corporate special interests will never change.
“This is a disappointment, but it is not a failure,” Brown said. “It will never be wrong to fight for organized labor, it will never be wrong to fight for the freedom of women to make their health care decisions, it surely will never be wrong to fight for civil rights and human rights. Tonight I am sad, but I am never giving up and neither is Connie.”
His wife, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Connie Schultz, affirmed, “No way.”
Brown and his allies pounced on cellphone video that emerged late in the campaign showing Moreno criticizing suburban women who base their votes on abortion rights to paint the Republican as out of step with the 57% of Ohioans who supported a 2023 amendment that enshrined access to abortion into the state’s constitution.
But abortion, the issue Democrats had banked on to help them win Tuesday, ultimately did not appear to be the determining factor. Republicans’ hopes for victory hinged on the one-time bellwether state’s hard shift to the right in recent elections and a strong financial advantage.
Four in 10 Ohio voters said the economy and jobs is the top issue facing the country, according to the 110,000 voters surveyed for AP VoteCast, which included more than 3,700 voters in Ohio. About 2 in 10 Ohio voters said immigration is the most pressing issue, while only about 1 in 10 named abortion.
Still, the abortion-rights group Reproductive Freedom for All thanked Brown for taking up the cause, both during the campaign and in the Senate.
“While we had hoped for another outcome, we’re proud to have mobilized by his side in this race,” President and CEO Mini Timmaraju said in a statement. "We know that Bernie Moreno is an urgent threat to abortion rights and access — and we won’t back down from holding him accountable for it.”
As Moreno and his Republican allies consistently outspent Democrats during the race, they significantly chipped away at Brown’s favorability ratings among Ohio voters, erasing an advantage that Brown had enjoyed in the polls throughout most of the campaign and depriving him of a fourth term.
Brown was the only Democrat to hold a nonjudicial statewide office in Ohio. Also Tuesday, all three Democrats running for the Ohio Supreme Court — an arena where the party had experienced rare statewide successes in recent elections — lost their races. The court's new majority will be 6-1 in Republicans' favor.
Julie Carr Smyth, The Associated Press