Bernie Moreno: the Trump-convert firebrand targeting Ohio Senate seat

Bernie Moreno won a convincing victory in the Republican Senate primary in Ohio on Tuesday night ensuring that the firebrand rightwinger goes up against the Democrat Sherrod Brown in the vital race.

Moreno’s victory sees the Trump-backed politician become the party’s standard-bearer against Brown in a contest that could decide control of the US Senate.

But it also cast light on a controversial Democratic strategy of supporting extremist Republican candidates in party nomination races out of a belief they are easier to beat in the general election – thus upping the odds of a Democratic win, but also running the risk that those extremists could actually get elected.

At 57, Moreno is to his supporters the American Dream made flesh: a Colombia-born, Florida-raised car dealer turned powerful populist Republican voice.

He is not, his lawyer insists, the author of a years-old post from his email account to the Adult Friend Finder website, seeking “young guys to have fun with” and “men for 1-on-1 sex”.

That scandal broke in the last days of the Ohio Senate primary but did not derail Moreno, who before gaining Trump’s backing voiced pro-LGBTQ+ views. A former intern (and donor) said he wrote the website post as an “aborted prank”.

Moreno may meanwhile have been boosted by an attack ad, backed by a group linked to Senate Democrats, that called him “too conservative for Ohio” and “too aligned” with Donald Trump.

The idea was to present the incumbent Democratic senator, Sherrod Brown, with an opponent easily portrayable as too extreme for Ohio. Such tactics have worked elsewhere, even in Republican states and particularly when linked to threats to reproductive rights, a profitable issue for Democrats since the conservative-dominated US