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Sen. Sherrod Brown, Ohio’s only Democrat still holding statewide elected office, was sworn in Tuesday as three Republicans fought over the right to challenge the incumbent in November. He was renominated to the Senate.
Bernie Moreno, a wealthy former car dealer who has been endorsed by former President Donald J. Trump, state Sen. Matt Dolan, whose family is majority owner of the Cleveland Guardians baseball team, and Ohio Secretary of State. The winner of Frank LaRose’s Republican slugfest will enter the general election run out of money and hurt by a negative primary.
But he also plans to run in a state that Trump won by eight points in each of the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections.
Mr. Brown, who was first elected to the Senate in 2006, expressed little concern about his third re-election bid or which Republican would win the primary. Democrats have established a reputation as pro-labor politicians who have opposed free trade agreements and championed labor unions in states where working-class people have flowed to the Republican Party since Barack Obama’s two victories. ing.
“We’re going to use this campaign to focus on my position in the fight against Wall Street, my position in the fight against drug companies, my position in trade with drug companies,” he told reporters Monday in Dayton, Ohio. I plan to spend my time comparing the two.”
Ohio and Montana, where Republicans control the Senate (the only states Trump won in 2020 and where Democrats are running for re-election), are expected to draw a lot of attention. Democrats hold 51 Senate seats, but one seat (in deep red West Virginia) has effectively disappeared with the retirement of conservative Democrat Joe Manchin III.
The Senate Leadership Fund, a super PAC aligned with Senate Republican leadership, and its ally American Crossroads secured about $83 million worth of advertising time in Ohio this fall.
But Mr. Brown has unique firepower as he raises money not only from labor unions loyal to him but also from companies that do business with the Senate Banking Committee, which he chairs. It turns out. His campaign has raised at least $26.7 million this election cycle, and he has $13.5 million in cash on hand.
By contrast, Mr. Moreno and Mr. Dolan each had depleted their war chests to less than $2.4 million by the end of February. Mr. LaRose’s annual salary was less than $600,000.
On the Republican side, rarely has a primary been so sharply divided between the old Republican establishment and the new Trump wing of the party. Dolan had the support of Ohio’s moderate Republican governor, Mike DeWine, and recently retired moderate senator Rob Portman. Moreno supported Trump, hoping the former president would once again deliver loyal foot soldiers to the Senate.
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