Trump-Backed Bernie Moreno Wins Ohio GOP Senate Primary

Bernie Moreno, the Donald Trump-backed businessman from Ohio, emerged the winner Tuesday of the ugly GOP primary to face Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown.

Moreno will run against Brown in what’s expected to be one of the messiest and most expensive Senate contests in the country. Brown was the last Democrat elected statewide in Ohio, a state that Trump carried twice and that Republicans see as one of their best chances for a Senate majority.

Moreno, 57, beat state Sen. Matt Dolan, an establishment conservative whose family owns the Cleveland Guardians Major League Baseball team, and Secretary of State Frank LaRose, who struggled to define himself and break out of third place.

The outcome suggests that Trump can continue to help his preferred candidates in primaries by endorsing them and then swooping in to get out the vote.

The race was also something of a proxy battle between the Trump and establishment wings of the party — while Moreno had the MAGA cavalry behind him, other players in the Ohio GOP, like former Sen. Rob Portman and current Gov. Mike DeWine, had endorsed Dolan.

The race, awash in cash from both Dolan and Moreno — who are each independently wealthy — became increasingly bitter and personal in its final days. Moreno’s allies tried to paint Dolan as a liberal who would provide amnesty to undocumented immigrants and raise taxes. And an Associated Press report linked Moreno’s work email address to a 2008 account on a dating website seeking “young guys to have fun with,” causing headaches for a candidate who has campaigned as a social conservative. (Moreno said the account’s existence was a prank by an intern.)

The race generated nearly $50 million in ad spending, according to data from AdImpact. The general