After emerging from a competitive March primary with over 50 percent of the vote in a three-way race, Bernie Moreno is hoping the same grassroots strategy that helped earn him the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate in Ohio will also be enough to unseat thrice-elected incumbent Sherrod Brown in a General Election race that could tip the power balance in the U.S. Senate.
Wednesday, July 10, the Logan County Fair marked the latest campaign stop for the Senate candidate as he continues to introduce himself to voters across Ohio. Amid a sideways drizzle and gusty winds, Moreno toured the grounds with fair board members and introduced himself to attendees.
The fairgrounds were friendly confines for Moreno — he received 2,895 votes in Logan County during the March primary; compared to 1,805 and 1,125 for his fellow GOP challengers. Moreno shook hands and exchanged pleasantries with the confidence of a candidate with the tailwinds that accompany an endorsement from former President Donald Trump and the consolidated party support from a convincing primary win.
Back inside the Merchant building, seated next to a campaign table filled with literature on various local GOP candidates, Moreno yard signs and Trump stickers, the Senate hopeful discussed the importance of coming to visit places like Logan County as he works to sustain enthusiasm for his campaign through the fall.
The local stop at the county fair, and other similar planned visits like it across the state, are an extension of the campaign strategy that served him well in March, Moreno said. The successful businessman and entrepreneur has never held elected office and has made it a point to introduce himself personally to all corners of the Buckeye state and everywhere in between, he said.
On the issues, Moreno emphasized government policy that puts Americans first and expressed skepticism around too much aid going to international conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza as part of a response that included a quip about building police stations in Kyiv — the capital of Ukraine — while police stations in places like Bellefontaine go underfunded.
He talked about the “or” choices of the federal government. “We can’t do everything,” Moreno said before asking rhetorically whether the government should send billions of dollars in aid abroad, or use funds to help Americans at home.
Moreno touts his business acumen as a job creator and entrepreneurial spirit as attributes that will serve him well in the U.S. Senate.
From his campaign website, “Bernie purchased his first car dealership in 2005 by investing every cent he had, and then some, and never looked back. Through his relentless work ethic and untamable entrepreneurial spirit, he turned that one dealership into one of the largest dealership groups in America.”
It is precisely that level of business sense needed to affect positive change in Washington, D.C., Moreno said.
On his opponent, the Senate challenger minced no words. “Coward,” “fraud,” “treasonous,” are all terms Moreno used to describe the incumbent Senate Democrat.
Read the entire story in Saturday’s edition of the Examiner.