The senate races in Ohio and Montana, where Democratic incumbents are running for reelection in states twice won by former President Donald Trump, have attracted enormous attention and spending on advertising because they could decide which party controls the U.S. Senate next year.
Ohio’s U.S. Senate race is the most expensive congressional race on record, with spending and future ad reservations from the campaigns and their allies totaling $416.4 million, according to AdImpact, an advertising tracking firm that tallied spending earlier this month.
Democrats and the independents who caucus with them hold a 51 to 49 seat advantage in the Senate, but Republicans are expected to pick up one seat in West Virginia. That would create a 50-50 tie if all other seats remain in the hands of the party that now holds them, giving the majority to the party that wins the White House since the vice president breaks ties.
Brown is ahead in the money race, collecting $83.8 million in total receipts, including from political action committees, for the election cycle through Sept. 30, and spending $81.2 million, according to the FEC. Brown has nearly $4.5 million on hand.
Moreno had $21.8 million in total receipts through Sept. 30, spent $18.6 million and has nearly $3.2 million on hand. Moreno’s receipts include a $4.5 million loan to himself, according to the FEC.
While the economy is the top issue for voters, abortion and immigration also are hot button topics in Ohio’s race and nationally.
Senators are paid $174,000 annually and serve a six-year term.
Here’s a look at Brown and Moreno.
Sherrod Brown
Brown has been a U.S. senator since 2007 and chairs the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee. Brown previously served in the U.S. House of Representatives and the Ohio House of Representatives and was Ohio Secretary of State.
If he wins reelection Brown said he will continue looking out for workers and families, including by making it easier to join a union and fighting “bad trade deals,” voting to permanently expand the child care tax credit and pushing to lower costs for housing, groceries and prescription drugs.
“For too many Ohioans, hard work isn’t paying off like it should. Every time people go to the grocery store they’re paying for stock buybacks and CEO bonuses,” Brown said in emailed answers to this news outlet’s questions. “Corporations have too much power in the economy, and they use it to squeeze the workers who make their companies successful, while funneling all the profits to the top, whether through corporate outsourcing or corporate price gouging.”
He touted his support of the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, which placed a $35 per month cap on insulin for Medicare recipients and for the first time allows Medicare to negotiate some prescription drug prices. Brown wants to expand the insulin price cap to everyone.
Brown sponsored the 2021 Butch Lewis Act, which helped underfunded or insolvent multiemployer pension plans meet benefit obligations to retired participants, and said he’s also worked to help restore the pensions of Delphi retirees.
After hearing the story of an Ohio veteran diagnosed with cancer after being exposed to toxic burn pits, Brown fought for passage of the bipartisan Heath Robinson PACT Act to secure health care benefits for veterans exposed to toxins.
Brown said the U.S. should continue to support Ukraine’s battle against Russia and that he supports Israel’s right to defend itself against Hamas and Iranian-backed terror groups. He called for Israel and Hamas to forge a cease fire that frees the hostages and provides humanitarian aide to Gaza.
“The United States must continue to help pave the way for lasting peace in the Middle East by aggressively pushing for an end to the fighting and, in the long-term, working toward a two-state solution that ensures stability for the entire region,” Brown said.
Credit: Intel Corporation
Credit: Intel Corporation
Brown also is focused on creating new jobs and helping manufacturing.
He worked with colleagues crafting the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022 to help fund semiconductor chip manufacturing at places like the two Intel Corp. plants being built in New Albany.
Brown pushed to include a requirement that the funded projects pay Davis-Bacon prevailing wages and to ensure funding for expanding the national network of manufacturing hubs and the manufacturing extension partnership program, according to information from his Senate office.
“We also need to make more in America — and there’s no better place to do that than Ohio. I’m working to grow new industries in Ohio and create good-paying, middle class jobs,” Brown said. “I am also fighting to keep the best manufacturing talent in the country in Ohio by investing in apprenticeship programs and hosting summer manufacturing camps across Ohio.”
Brown said he’s worked to protect jobs and missions at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and the Ohio Air National Guard Base in Springfield, and pushed to bring the Space Force to Ohio. He said he also worked to bring Joby Aviation, a manufacturer of electric vertical take-off and landing vehicles, to Dayton.
Brown on immigration
Border security and battling drug trafficking are also priorities for Brown. He co-introduced the FEND Off Fentanyl Act expanding sanctions against fentanyl traffickers in Mexico and those making precursor chemicals in China, which passed this year, and a 2023 bill that provides funding to protect border authorities from exposure to fentanyl during inspections. He also co-sponsored the INTERDICT Act that passed in 2018 and provided high-tech screening equipment and lab resources to detect fentanyl at the border.
Brown supported the bipartisan border security bill that failed to advance in Congress this year after Trump came out against it.
Moreno opposed the bill, which would have increased border enforcement, allowed migrants to be turned away and added border patrol agents, immigration judges and asylum officers.
Brown accused Moreno looking out only for himself and his “special interest friends.”
“From refusing to pay his workers the overtime they earned, shredding evidence a judge ordered him to keep to try to get away with it, supporting a national abortion ban and calling Ohio women ‘crazy’ for caring about wanting to make their own health care decisions, Bernie has shown time and again that he won’t fight for Ohioans,” Brown said.
Brown is referencing a lawsuit against Moreno over unpaid overtime by employees of his auto dealership in Massachusetts, where Moreno was sanctioned by the judge for destroying overtime records that he was ordered to keep. In 2022 the jury in that case found against Moreno and he was ordered to pay $416,160 to the employees, according to WKYC-TV in Cleveland. Moreno later settled more than a dozen similar lawsuits over the same issue.
Brown on abortion
Brown, a supporter of the reproductive rights constitutional amendment Ohio voters approved last year, has hammered Moreno for his support of an abortion ban.
“While I will always support a woman’s right to make her own health care decisions and ensure all Ohioans have access to the affordable, quality health care they need, my opponent wants to overrule voters with a national abortion ban and has said he is ‘100% pro-life with no exceptions,’” Brown said.
The Poynter Institute’s nonpartisan PolitiFact rated Brown’s claim about Moreno supporting no exceptions as “half true” in a fact-check in September. Moreno has previously indicated he would not support exceptions to the ban. But Moreno’s campaign now says he supports exceptions for rape, incest and the mother’s life.
Bernie Moreno
Moreno is president of Bernie Moreno Companies. He previously owned multiple luxury car dealerships, which he later sold, and co-founded a blockchain company called ChampTitles that he also sold. A Columbian immigrant, Moreno became a U.S. citizen at age 18. Moreno, who has not held elective office, withdrew from the 2022 Republican U.S. Senate primary, but in this year’s bid was endorsed by Trump over two other candidates.
Moreno campaign spokeswoman Reagan McCarthy provided brief answers to questions sent by this news outlet.
McCarthy called Brown a “career politician” with no accomplishments to show for his years in office.
“Sherrod votes with Biden and Harris nearly 100% of the time and has helped create the wide open southern border, dismal economy, chaos on the global stage and a war on American energy,” McCarthy said.
She said Moreno wants to ensure public safety and improve the economy.
“The reckless spending in Washington, D.C. helped ignite this inflation crisis that is burdening Ohio families. When Bernie is in the Senate, he will oppose the insane spending bills put forth by senate Democrats,” McCarthy said.
On his campaign website Moreno says American workers “have been left behind by career politicians.”
“Solving our country’s problems requires common sense. In Washington, Bernie will fight to shrink government, protect our freedoms, stop the Chinese communist party from taking our data and land, and always put America First,” the website says.
The website also lists several priorities. Moreno wants to restore American manufacturing, cut regulations and government spending, empower parents to make education choices, empower local law enforcement, hold tech companies accountable, “break up big media,” defend the 2nd Amendment, term limit members of Congress, “End Wokeness and Cancel Culture,” “End Socialism in America,” support Israel and “fight to put a stop to all forms of antisemitism in the United States,” according to the website.
“He unequivocally supports Israel’s right to defend itself, defeat Hamas and return our hostages,” McCarthy said.
As for the war in Ukraine, McCarthy said Moreno wants the killing to end but believes the U.S. should stop sending “unaccountable taxpayer dollars to fund this war.”
Moreno on immigration
Moreno’s campaign has focused primarily on immigration and McCarthy said securing the southern border is one of his top priorities.
Moreno campaigned in Springfield, where a growing population of Haitian immigrants estimated at 12,000 to 15,000 has strained services but also filled jobs. Many of them are here legally through immigration statuses such as Temporary Protected Status (TPS), humanitarian parole or asylum.
“Bernie supports ending TPS, a program that was meant to be temporary,” McCarthy said, “TPS has exploded under this administration to a level not seen under any previous administration.”
Moreno calls for a mass deportation of immigrants who came to the U.S. illegally. In a September campaign event in Springfield Moreno said the Haitian immigrants in Springfield should be deported starting in 2025. Moreno also amplified an unsubstantiated rumor that Haitian immigrants in Springfield were eating cats and dogs.
In a September 9 Instagram post Moreno said, “Kamala Harris and Sherrod Brown are responsible for flooding Springfield, Ohio with thousands of illegal Haitians who are sucking up social services and even reportedly killing and eating pets,” according to a Sept. 18 fact check by PolitiFact.
PolitiFact gave Moreno’s statement a “Pants on Fire” false rating, saying that Springfield officials and Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine have said the rumor about pets is untrue, that many of the Haitians are here legally and Brown had nothing to do with President Joe Biden’s executive actions on immigration.
PolitiFact had earlier rated as “false” a Moreno political ad that claimed Brown voted to “give illegals taxpayer-funded stimulus checks, health care, even Social Security.”
Brown’s campaign denied Moreno’s claims.
Credit: Nick Graham
Credit: Nick Graham
Asked how a mass deportation would be paid for and how immigrants would be found and deported, Moreno said in an interview with this news outlet after a March primary debate at Miami University that it would be less expensive to find and deport the immigrants than what it costs now to have them live here. Moreno said he would start finding the immigrants by going to cities led by Democrats.
“Bernie believes that illegal immigrants with a criminal record in America should be deported first,” McCarthy said.
Moreno on abortion
Moreno opposed Ohio’s reproductive rights constitutional amendment. He said at a January 22 primary candidate debate that he supports a federal ban on abortion at 15 weeks.
Asked about Moreno’s position on abortion rights and bans, McCarthy said, “Bernie believes it should be left to the states. He also believes that starting a family should be made more affordable and contraception should be more widely available.”
Sherrod Brown
Age: 71
Address: Cleveland, Ohio
Education: Bachelor’s degree-Yale University; Master’s degree and Master’s in Public Administration-Ohio State University
Family: Wife and four adult children
Current Employment: U.S. Senate
Political Experience: U.S. Senator since 2007. Previously U.S. House of Representatives, Ohio Secretary of State, Ohio House of Representatives
Political Party: Democratic Party
Website: www.sherrodbrown.com
Bernie Moreno
Age: 57
Address: Westlake, Ohio
Education: Bachelor’s degree in marketing-University of Michigan
Family: Wife and 4 adult children
Current Employment: President of Bernie Moreno Companies
Political Experience: None
Political Party: Republican Party
Website: www.berniemoreno.com
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