Ohio’s U.S. Senate race is one of the tightest and costliest in the country, and GOP nominee Bernie Moreno has been on the road in the final stretch to make closing arguments for why he should oust incumbent Sen. Sherrod Brown from his seat.
Although Moreno, the car dealer, may have had some name recognition in northeast Ohio before he became Moreno, the candidate, he’s been introducing and re-introducing himself statewide over the last year.
Moreno is backed by former President Donald Trump, and his team isn’t shy about reminding Ohio voters of that on television or on the trail. After Moreno exited the 2022 party primary for U.S. Senate early, following a conversation with the former president, Trump’s endorsement led in part to Moreno’s 2024 primary nomination.
In an interview Monday, Moreno said voters should know he doesn't diverge from Trump on the issues. “That's why he endorsed me and that's why I endorsed him,” Moreno said.
Immigration
Moreno's family immigrated from Colombia to Florida when he was a 5-year-old. On the trail, he's talked at length about immigration issues. He said he believes mass-scale deportations of immigrants who have come to the U.S. without proper authorization are common sense.
“There's only one way to come to the United States of America: on our terms, legally. Period,” Moreno said.
He and other Republicans have pointed to the Haitian population in Springfield—almost all of whom are in town legally under short-term federal status—as a poster child for problems with current federal policy.
“They're allowed to be in this country until February of 2026,” he said Monday. “I acknowledge that, and by the way, respect that. Disagree that it should have been done, think it was a corruption of our immigration system, but it's expiring in February of 2026. They need to make plans to leave.”
Government and the economy
Moreno has chided Congress’s passage of the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 and Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021. The two laws were both big priorities of Democratic President Joe Biden.
“What are we going do? The opposite,” he said. “We're going to make sure that we cut government spending, unleash American energy, unleash productivity, stop paying people not to work, reduce the regulatory burden on businesses and create a tax environment that encourages growth.”
The government shouldn’t subsidize wind and solar, he said, instead focusing on “unleashing” what he sees as “abundant” and “reliable” energy—coal, natural gas, nuclear.
Generally, Moreno said he believes corporate companies and small businesses need fewer government regulations to thrive. There’s been political posturing over whether corporate companies had a hand in inflation, something he rebuked.
“Corporations didn't discover how to be greedy in the last three and a half years,” he said. “Markets are extraordinarily efficient, so if somebody wants to charge $2 for a soda, and you can actually sell it for a dollar, somebody will come into the market and sell it for a dollar.”
Some could be reined in, though, he said—for instance, pharmacy benefit managers and some insurance firms.
Moreno is also a big backer of digital currencies. He's for a federal strategic Bitcoin reserve and allowing Bitcoin investment in 401(k) retirement funds, he said.
Abortion
As his party tries to find its footing on the issue post-Roe and as Brown's team puts it center stage, Moreno has gone back-and-forth on abortion.
More recently, Moreno said abortion should be left to states and characterized it as mostly settled. But throughout the cycle, he's caught flack for off-the-cuff comments about older women who are single-issue voters.
Moreno has backed a ban at 15 weeks and said the government should do what it can to reduce abortions, including by funding “crisis pregnancy centers” that abortion rights advocates argue are anti-abortion.
Other issues in this race
Among other policy priorities, Moreno has said he wants federal protections of qualified immunity for police officers and other law enforcement, to get rid of the U.S. Department of Education in its entirety, and enactment of Congressional term limits.
If the political newcomer successfully beats Brown out, he's promising to serve only two six-year terms.
“I'm not going to go there and live the rest of my life being wheeled around the United States Capitol.”
And despite near-constant partisanship on the trail, Moreno said he's not against the idea of working with Democrats on the issues.
“The country is designed to be govern from the center,” he said. “It's not designed to be governed by the extremes because it's too big and too diverse a country. Your values and my values and somebody in San Francisco or Boston, New York or Florida may be very, very different.”
Moreno's statewide bus tour kicked off in suburban Columbus and downtown Ashland on Monday with Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.).
