Bernie Moreno, a wealthy former car dealer and hard-right Republican, has defeated three-term Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio, according to The Associated Press, giving the G.O.P. enough seats to win the Senate majority unless Democrats pulled out an unexpected win in another competitive race.
The victory of Mr. Moreno, a well-financed political novice who had been trailing in public and private polls, was itself a stunning upset. It also spelled the downfall of the last Democrat to hold statewide office in Ohio, a onetime bellwether that has become a reliably red state.
The raspy-voiced Mr. Brown built his campaign around his well-known populist brand, opposing free-trade deals that harm local workers and working to raise wages and benefits at home. But he made his final appeal to voters on the issue of abortion rights. Mr. Moreno, who was backed by Mr. Trump and tens of millions of dollars from the cryptocurrency industry — which was eager to oust Mr. Brown from his perch as the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee — was unavoidable on the Ohio airwaves over the past few months. He tried to paint Mr. Brown as a Democrat in lock step with the Biden-Harris administration, a politician who had been in Washington for so long that he had lost touch with Ohio workers. Mr. Brown said he was confident that strategy wouldn’t work and that Ohio voters knew who he was and what he stood for.
Democrats tried to highlight for voters Mr. Moreno’s own controversies. He had been sued by former employees for not paying them overtime and then lost or destroyed evidence to avoid paying them. He also falsely claimed that he never sold Chinese-made cars on his lots.
And at a town hall in September, Mr. Moreno bemoaned how many women were single-issue voters on abortion rights. “It’s a little crazy, by the way — especially for women that are, like, past 50,” Mr. Moreno said. “I’m thinking to myself: I don’t think that’s an issue for you.”
Mr. Brown tried to capitalize on the gaffe, rounding up older, conservative women who were offended by the comment to talk about how they were supporting Mr. Brown. Mr. Moreno said it was simply a quip that didn’t land.
“What are you going to do,” he told Megyn Kelly during a podcast interview, addressing the outrage directed at him for his statement on older women and abortion. “If you wake up every day waiting to be insulted or outraged, it’s a pretty sad life.”
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