Bernie Moreno Defeats Sherrod Brown, Ohio’s Last Statewide-Elected Democrat

Mother Jones illustration; Joe Maiorana/AP; Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call/AP

Late Tuesday night, the Associated Press projected Ohio Republican Bernie Moreno defeated Democratic incumbent Sen. Sherrod Brown—and with him, any sense that Ohio was still a swing state.

Brown, who served three terms, maintained an edge for most of his US Senate reelection bid against Moreno, a former luxury car dealership owner from Colombia. But in the end, a windfall of cash from national Republican groups boosted Moreno over the top. Just before midnight, Moreno lead Brown by 5 points.

It’s not surprising that a Republican would win a Senate seat in Ohio, but the fact that this particular Republican beat a well-liked incumbent suggests how much Ohio has changed in less than a decade.

As a Rust Belt state devastated by deindustrialization, automation, and in recent years, an epidemic of drug addiction, Ohio tends to gravitate toward candidates who are dutiful in their support for middle-class and working-class voters. But Moreno doesn’t have a pro-worker reputation: As we previously reported, he was found liable for withholding wages from employees and was sanctioned by a judge for disposing of documents relevant to that case. He additionally faced lawsuits from former employees who accused him of racial, gender, and age discrimination. More recently, he’s blocked voters from recording his events by using audio jammers.

Moreno also struggled to refine his message on reproductive rights, a topic 57 percent of Ohio voters said they supported in 2023 when they approved a ballot measure enshrining abortion access. “You know, the left has a lot of single issue voters,” Moreno said in a leaked video from a recent town hall. “Sadly, by the way, there’s a lot of suburban women, a lot of suburban women that are like, ‘Listen, abortion is it. If I can’t have an abortion in this country whenever I want, I will vote for anybody else,’” Moreno mocked. “OK. It’s a little crazy, by the way, but—especially for women that are like past 50, I’m thinking to myself, ‘I don’t think that’s an issue for you.’”

But Moreno did have something Brown could never dream of—nor desire: an endorsement from Donald Trump. That endorsement was likely pivotal for Moreno, says Paul Beck, professor emeritus of political science at Ohio State University. It gave him the edge against state Sen. Matt Dolan, a more traditional Republican who was Moreno’s biggest competition in the primary race. With no political experience and, until recently, not much name recognition, “he doesn’t really have a strong track record” otherwise, Beck says.

While Brown is a political progressive—supporting LGBTQ rights and reproductive freedoms—he has maintained a healthy distance from the rest of his party in recent months. He didn’t campaign with Harris. He stayed home this summer while fellow Democrats threw their celebratory, celebrity-filled nominating convention in Chicago. Brown also garnered the endorsement of the only Republican who ever defeated him in an election: former Ohio Gov. Bob Taft, who bested Brown as he sought reelection as Ohio’s secretary of state in 1990.

Known for sporting union-made suits and driving union-made cars, Brown’s 2024 campaign also attracted long-standing appreciation from prominent labor union leaders. The senator often wears a canary pin on his lapel to symbolize 20th-century coal miners who were subjected to dangerous working conditions before collective bargaining advanced job safety.

His populist persona and these contradictions are the same ones that helped Brown win the Senate seat three times in 2006, 2012, and 2018. It’s not that Brown has changed. It’s that Ohio has.

Ohio used to be a political microcosm of the country. Without fail, between 1964 and 2016, Ohio’s presidential pick was also the nation’s choice of president. The consistency inspired the phrase, “As Ohio goes, so goes the nation.”

In the early 2000s, the state’s population growth began lagging behind the rest of the country. Over time, Ohio became less educated, older, whiter—and, accordingly, redder. When Trump ran in 2016, his brash, America First persona appealed to Ohioans who felt they had been forgotten by elite politicians prioritizing globalism over their kitchen-table issues. In both 2016 and 2020, Trump won the state by more than 8 points. That trend has continued this cycle: As of 11:30 pm ET, Trump was nearly 12 points ahead of Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris in Ohio.

In the end, Brown’s legislative history and broad coalition of blue-collar devotees couldn’t propel him to a fourth term. In today’s Ohio, only Trump’s support mattered.