Despite Mounting Legal Woes Trump Scores Big Win in Ohio

Bernie Moreno, a Cleveland businessman and political newcomer, beat out GOP state Senator Matt Dolan and Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, advancing to face incumbent Senator Sherrod Brown, a Democrat, in November.

Moreno had earned endorsements from several political heads aligned with Trump’s Make American Great Again (MAGA) movement, including Ohio Senator J.D. Vance, who in 2022 rode Trump’s endorsement to the U.S. Senate as a political outsider. Dolan, Moreno’s top competitor, was backed by several established Republicans in the state, including Governor Mike DeWine and former Senator Rob Portman.

Once viewed as a swing state during the 2000s and 2010s, Ohio has recently looked far less competitive in major elections. Trump won the state over President Joe Biden by a roughly 8 percent margin in 2020—a larger lead than he held in Texas and Florida that year.

The former president also beat out former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Ohio by 8 points in 2016, and earned nearly 80 percent of the vote in the state’s presidential primary on Tuesday.

Brown is the only Democratic candidate to win a statewide Ohio election since 2012.

The political field may be shifting in the state once again, however, after Ohioans voted to enshrine abortion protections into the state’s constitution in November, a consistent winning issue for Democrats since the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade in June 2022. Voters also passed a measure to legalize recreational marijuana. DeWine and other Ohio Republicans were critical of both measures leading up to the election.

Ohio’s Senate race could give Republicans a chance to take control of Congress’ upper chamber in November. Only one other Senate seat, in Montana, is up for grabs this fall where a Democratic incumbent is running for reelection in a state that Trump won in 2020.

Several Republicans congratulated Moreno on Tuesday evening, including Vance, who said that the businessman was pretty good at winning.

Former Republican gubernatorial candidate and Trump ally Kari Lake, who is running for U.S. Senate in Arizona, wrote on X that she endorsed Moreno because he is a man of integrity & he works harder than just about anyone I know.

Congressman Byron Donalds, a MAGA Republican from Florida, also celebrated Moreno’s win, writing in a post to X that the road to a Republican Senate Majority runs through Ohio.