CLEVELAND — Republicans are dominating the airwaves in Ohio’s Senate race this month, erasing an advantage that Sen. Sherrod Brown and his Democratic allies enjoyed all spring and for much of the summer in a battle that could tip control of the Senate.
GOP nominee Bernie Moreno and the outside groups supporting him have spent double what Brown and the Democrats have on TV, radio and digital advertising since Sept. 1 — roughly $70 million to $35 million through Wednesday, according to the tracking firm AdImpact.
By comparison, from Ohio’s March primary through August, Democrats held the edge, dropping $78.5 million on ads to Republicans’ $59 million.
“Red flashing lights have to be blinking all over [Brown’s] campaign headquarters,” said Jai Chabria, a GOP strategist in Ohio who helped run Sen. JD Vance’s successful 2022 campaign. “The Republican money has just started to be spent, and they are going to take this seriously because this is the race they need for the majority.”
The onslaught, which comes amid a shakeup of the Senate battleground map, coincides with a rough week for Moreno, whose hard-line positions on abortion have brought new scrutiny to his campaign.
“Bernie’s special interest allies are dumping hundreds of millions of dollars into this race to try and defeat Sherrod because they know Sherrod will always stand up to them to do what’s right for Ohio,” Brown spokesperson Matt Keyes said in a statement.
Democrats, who hold a one-seat majority in the Senate, are growing increasingly nervous about Sen. Jon Tester’s re-election bid in Montana. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee on Thursday announced investments in races in Florida and Texas, two GOP-held seats seen as heavier lifts.
Republicans, meanwhile, have more paths to a majority. West Virginia’s open seat is widely expected to flip their way. And along with Montana and Ohio, they have pickup opportunities in the battleground states of Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, as well as deep-blue Maryland, where popular GOP former Gov. Larry Hogan is running.
“We need to continue to invest in Ohio,” the DSCC chairman, Sen. Gary Peters of Michigan, said Thursday at an event at the National Press Club in Washington. “We’re not done investing in Ohio, and it will take more money. But right now ... we have a lot of outside groups that are dumping tens of millions of dollars against Sherrod, trying to prop up another highly flawed candidate.”
Philip Letsou, a spokesperson for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, countered that Brown had “sold out his working-class base to toe the Democrat Party line, voting in lockstep” with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee.
“After 50 years in politics, Ohio voters are ready to send him home,” Letsou added.
Brown, seeking a fourth term, is the only Democrat other than former President Barack Obama who has won more than one statewide election over the last quarter-century in Ohio. Former President Donald Trump, who is on the ballot again this year and has endorsed Moreno, twice won the state by 8 percentage points. The few recent public polls in the state indicate a close Senate race.
“It is an unprecedented level of spending against Sherrod,” said a Democrat who works on Senate races and was granted anonymity to speak candidly about the uphill battle. “It speaks to his resilience that this is still a toss-up, because most people would be done.”
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Early voting begins Oct. 8. Both sides are fighting as if the race is close and can be altered by a single error. While Brown and Moreno have each expressed passing interest in having a debate, neither has demanded one — an unusual dynamic in a state where Brown debated each of his previous general election opponents multiple times. As of this week, nothing was close to being scheduled, officials with both campaigns said.
Democrats had a clear advertising advantage coming out of a contentious March primary that cost Moreno’s campaign millions of dollars to win.
Brown, who through July had outraised his GOP opponent considerably even after the independently wealthy Moreno lent his campaign more than $4 million, tapped into his cash lead and began airing ads to define himself positively — as an apolitical friend of the working class. Eventually, Brown and outside groups unleashed spots that depicted Moreno as a ruthless businessman and untrustworthy car dealer.
But the Republican barrage intensified in mid-August and, by September, the Democratic edge had evaporated.
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“Sherrod acted like the true liberal he is and spent — and, frankly, wasted — an entire summer doing God knows what with his money,” said Chris Grant, Moreno’s general campaign consultant. “So whatever cash advantage they had, it’s gone, and they didn’t move anything.”
The Republican ads have been a mix — promoting Moreno’s background as a businessman and characterizing Brown as a career politician beholden to Harris and President Joe Biden.
Defend American Jobs, a pro-Moreno group tied to the cryptocurrency industry, and the GOP-aligned Senate Leadership Fund have each spent more than $25 million on ads in Ohio this month, making them the race’s two biggest players, according to AdImpact. Close behind is WinSenate, a political action committee affiliated with the Democrats’ Senate Majority PAC, which has spent more than $22 million this month.
Democrats have been able to stretch their money a bit more than the spending disparity shows, in part because candidates can buy ads at lower rates than super PACs and Brown’s campaign has outspent Moreno’s on the airwaves. Brown’s campaign on its own has spent $10.5 million on ads this month, while Moreno’s has joined with the National Republican Senatorial Committee to spend about $5 million.
As of Thursday, ad reservations placed through Election Day were on more equal footing, with Republicans booked to spend $64 million to Democrats’ $58 million. Reservations can be modified, though, as groups and campaigns can cancel airtime or buy more of it.
“Bernie is headed in the right direction and has momentum,” said Scott Guthrie, a GOP strategist who has worked on Senate campaigns in Ohio but is not affiliated with Moreno’s team. “Several polls have shown him either tied or ahead going into the last few weeks before the election, and the overall spending over the final six weeks is overwhelmingly in Bernie’s favor.”
Peters declined Thursday to specify how much money the DSCC will spend in Texas and Florida, but he stressed to reporters that the new investments will not divert resources from other states, like Montana and Ohio.
“There is no world that I, that you can conceive of, that I’m not going to be in Montana right to the very end,” Peters said. “Jon Tester will have everything that he needs to win.”
Peters was also bullish on Ohio: “There’s no way I’m losing Ohio.”
Ohio Democrats plan to call more attention to Moreno’s recent disparaging comments about women who base their votes on access to abortion. Moreno described the idea of being such a single-issue voter as “a little crazy … especially for women that are, like, past 50.”
Moreno spokesperson Reagan McCarthy said the remarks were “a tongue-in-cheek joke” meant to chastise Brown and the media for their heavy emphasis on the abortion issue. But it could be a significant one in Ohio, where last year voters overwhelmingly approved a ballot initiative that preserved abortion rights in the state constitution. Moreno was a prominent opponent of the measure and has continued to express support for federal abortion restrictions.
WinSenate debuted an ad Thursday in which Mary Ann, a Toledo woman, recalls an emergency abortion performed years ago during her ectopic pregnancy. She says her doctors “would have had to let me die” if a federal abortion ban had been in effect at the time.
“It’s about my granddaughter and all the women that I know and love and future generations,” Mary Ann says in the ad. “Our lives don’t belong in Bernie Moreno’s hands.”
Chabria, the Vance strategist, argued that last year’s successful ballot initiative has made the abortion issue a “moot point” in Ohio.
“The electoral ramifications,” he added, “will be marginal.”
