This is the type of coverage we need to see more of from CNN:
Donald Trump-backed Senate Republican candidate Bernie Moreno, who won a tough primary race last week in Ohio, refused to say if he believes the 2020 presidential election was stolen from the former president.
“Oh my gosh, are we talking about that? We’ve had like three elections since then,” he told CNN last week as he departed a meeting of the Republican conference in the Capitol. “The reality is, we’re gonna look to the future. The people in Ohio, what they care about is when they go to McDonald’s, they can’t afford French fries.”
Pressed to say yes or no if it was stolen, he didn’t answer directly, and entered the office of Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell.
“This is not the topic I think people think about,” he said.
In January, Moreno’s campaign released a digital ad in which Moreno looked directly into the camera and said, “President Trump says the election was stolen, and he’s right.”
Moreno also pushed The Big Lie back in 2021 when he was briefly running in the 2022 GOP primary for retiring U.S. Senator Rob Portman’s (R. OH) open seat:
Ohio Republican Senate candidate Bernie Moreno released a new ad this week called “Truth,” but what it claims is false.
“President Trump says the election was stolen, and he’s right,” Moreno says to the camera.
The Justice Department and election officials have said there is no evidence the 2020 election was stolen. Audits and recounts have confirmed Joe Biden won the presidency fair and square.
But former President Donald Trump still insists otherwise; and several of the Republican U.S. Senate candidates in Ohio are supporting his baseless claim as they fight for his endorsement.
Moreno’s new ad is notable because it contradicts his tweets from November 2020.
“To my conservative friends: accept the results of 140m+ votes cast. Was it perfect, no…was it anywhere near enough to change the result, no. #ElectionIsOver #Unite,” Moreno wrote in a November 7, 2020 tweet.
That same day, he congratulated Biden and his running mate, Kamala Harris, in a separate tweet “for their hard fought victory.”
Moreno’s former GOP primary rival, Secretary of State Frank LaRose (R. OH), said it best about Moreno:
Even though LaRose cowardly endorsed Moreno after saying voters couldn’t trust him:
Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose joined other GOP statewide officeholders Thursday in endorsing his former rival, Republican Senate nominee Bernie Moreno — after a bruising and expensive primary in which he repeatedly attacked his rival as untrustworthy.
In a post on X, formerly Twitter, LaRose said he joined the Senate race because he was concerned about the direction of the country and that he believes Moreno “has what it takes to bring real change to Washington and work with President Trump to make America great again.”
"We urgently need to change course," tweeted LaRose, who lost the former president's endorsement to Moreno. "That starts by retiring Sherrod Brown and replacing the failed leadership in Washington." LaRose said he stands ready to help.
U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown (D. OH) understand he is the fight for his life but is ready to run on his record:
But beneath that image is trouble. On Monday, he had just received an endorsement from the 100,000-strong Ohio State Building and Construction Trades Council, when a retired bricklayer, Jeff King, pulled him aside in a weathered union hall in Dayton.
Mr. Brown has had plenty of achievements to run on, Mr. King, who made the trip from his local in Cincinnati, told the senator. But, he asked, would workers in a blue-collar state that has twice handed Mr. Trump eight-percentage-point victories understand who should get the credit?
“That’s the mission,” Mr. Brown said, leaning in. “They don’t know enough.”
The party and its union allies have made the re-election of Ohio’s senior senator their highest priority — “the very top,” said Lee Saunders, the president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees and the chairman of the A.F.L.-C.I.O.’s political committee.
The election could be breaking Mr. Brown’s way. With Mr. Trump’s endorsement — and a nudge from a Democratic super PAC — the Democrats’ preferred Republican opponent, Bernie Moreno, easily prevailed in the Republican Senate primary on Tuesday, handing the incumbent a foil with staggering wealth, little political experience and the imprimatur of a former president who could prompt some voters to split their tickets.
The next day, the Biden administration announced an $8.5 billion deal to fund Intel Corporation’s semiconductor manufacturing, much of it destined for Ohio, courtesy of legislation that Mr. Brown helped secure. Because of Mr. Brown, that law, the Chips and Science Act, requires so-called project labor agreements to be struck between management and union laborers before plant construction could begin. So 7,000 union tradesmen will be employed at the massive Intel complex outside of Columbus.
On that same Wednesday, the administration finalized stringent new car and truck emissions standards that should increase electric-vehicle manufacturing at the Stellantis Jeep complex in Toledo and automotive battery plants around Youngstown.
Finally, construction should begin around election time on a long-sought replacement for the Brent Spence Bridge, linking Cincinnati to its suburbs in Kentucky. That, too, was delivered in part by Mr. Brown.
And Brown is out there reminding voters who he is:
Knows the issues to run on:
And has a strong campaign message:
Health, Democracy and Freedom are on the ballot next year and we need to get ready to flip Ohio Blue. Click below to donate and get involved with Brown and his fellow Ohio Democrats campaigns:
U.S. Senate
Sherrod Brown
Congress
Emilia Sykes
Greg Landsman
Marcy Kaptur
Shontel Brown
Ohio Supreme Court
Lisa Forbes
Melody Stewart
Michael Donnelly
State Party
Ohio Democratic Party
