Trump favorites win primaries, to face vulnerable Dems
COLUMBUS, OHIO>> Things went former President Donald Trump’s way on Tuesday in a pair of highprofile elections in Ohio that could determine their chances of picking up critical seats this fall and expanding their power in Washington.
In the bruising and expensive primary to face Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown this fall, voters chose Trump-backed Cleveland businessman Bernie Moreno over state Sen. Matt Dolan and Ohio Secretary of State Frank Larose. In northwest Ohio, state Rep. Derek Merrin prevailed over former state Rep. Craig Riedel a day after Trump endorsed him. Merrin will face longtime U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur in November’s general election.
Both Brown and Kaptur are considered among the year’s most vulnerable Democrats, amid Ohio’s tack to the political right in recent years. With Democrats holding a narrow voting majority in the Senate and Republicans maintaining a thin margin in the U.S. House, both races have already drawn outsized attention from national party leaders.
Moreno used his acceptance speech in Cleveland to shower praise on Trump, as well as to commend Dolan and Larose on campaigns well run. He called on the party to unify now to defeat Brown.
“We have an opportunity now to retire the old commie, and send him to a retirement home and save this country, because that’s what we’re going to do,” Moreno told a cheering crowd.
He called Brown President Joe Biden’s “absolute enabler” in the Senate and liberal Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s “lapdog.”
Brown responded to the news on X: “The choice ahead of Ohio is clear: Bernie Moreno has spent his career and campaign putting himself first, and would do the same if elected. I’ll always work for Ohio.”
The general election fight is expected to be at least as fierce in a state that has trended Republican in recent years.
With Democrats holding a tenuous 51-49 voting majority in the Senate but defending more seats than Republicans, Brown’s seat is expected to be a top GOP target. He is the lone Democrat holding a nonjudicial statewide office in Ohio, a state that has moved steadily to the right during the Trump era.
Meanwhile, Trump easily won Republican primaries in Arizona, Florida, Illinois, Kansas and Ohio. Biden did the same except in Florida, where Democrats had canceled their primary and opted to award all 224 of their delegates to Biden.
In a move that drew bipartisan rebukes, Senate Majority PAC, an independent group aligned with Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, spent $2.7 million to elevate Moreno’s primary bid, with the idea that he would be the weakest against Brown this fall.
Brown is expected to make abortion rights a cornerstone of his campaign. In the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision overturning the constitutional right to an abortion, Ohioans strongly supported a state constitutional amendment last year to protect access to the procedure.
Moreno, a former luxury car dealer and blockchain entrepreneur, weathered controversy late in the campaign.
The Associated Press reported last week that in 2008, someone with access to Moreno’s work email account created a profile on an adult website seeking “Men for 1-on-1 sex.” The AP could not definitively confirm that it was created by Moreno himself. Moreno’s lawyer said a former intern created the account and provided a statement from the intern, Dan Ricci, who said he created the account as “part of a juvenile prank.”