Republican Bernie Moreno defeats incumbent Sherrod Brown for Ohio U.S. Senate seat • Ohio Capital Journal

Voters have elected Republican Bernie Moreno to represent Ohio in the U.S. Senate according to projections from the Associated Press based on unofficial results. Moreno defeated incumbent Democratic U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, who has held the office since 2006. Results remain unofficial until they are certified by local county boards of elections and the Ohio Secretary of State.

The Cleveland area businessman’s victory brings Brown’s time in the U.S. Senate to a close after 18 years. For the first time since Brown took office, Ohio will have two Republicans representing it in the chamber.

Speaking to supporters in Westlake, Moreno called it “a new dawn of Republican leadership” with the GOP in control of the U.S. Senate majority and the White House. To be clear, based on the Associated Press race calls, Republicans have secured a majority in the U.S. Senate, but the presidency is still up in the air.

“To all of you, we celebrate tonight not as Republicans, we celebrate tonight as Americans,” Moreno told the crowd. “And to the people out there in Ohio who didn’t vote for me, just know that I will always advocate for you, I will always have your back and I will work for the next six years to win you over.”

Moreno amassed a significant personal fortune through car dealerships. From there, he grew interested in blockchain, and started a company leveraging the technology for vehicle titles and registration. Democrats attempted to turn that success against Moreno — depicting the wealthy businessman as a “fat cat” and pointing to a string of wage theft cases filed against him.

Moreno, like J.D. Vance before him, rode Donald Trump’s endorsement to a primary election victory, and then hewed close to the former president’s rhetoric throughout the race. In his victory speech, Moreno thanked Trump for being “decisive” in the primary election and said the country “owes Donald J. Trump a debt of gratitude.”

On the campaign, Moreno hammered Brown on the economy and immigration, hanging the perceived failures of the Biden administration around the senator’s neck. In the final stretch of the campaign he and his allies pushed a series of anti-trans attacks against Brown.

Brown’s attempts at pushing back — touting his record protecting jobs, voting for bipartisan immigration reform, and dismissing the anti-trans attack lines as specious — proved unsuccessful.

“This is a disappointment but is not a failure,” Brown told supports in a concession speech in Columbus around 11:30 Tuesday night.

“It will never be wrong to fight for organized labor, it will never be wrong to fight for the freedom of women to make their health care decisions, it surely will never be wrong to fight for civil rights and human rights,” he continued.

Moreno took a rocky road to Election Day. Reproductive rights in particular have been an ongoing challenge for him. Moreno had to distance himself from the 100% pro-life no exceptions position he staked out in a brief 2022 run, and then had to distance himself from the 15-week ban he supported in this year’s primary after Trump attempted to wash his hands of the issue. Moreno made his job harder with campaign trail gaffes — most notably one in which he described it as “a little crazy” for older women to premise their vote on a candidate’s position on abortion.