Bernie Moreno Beats Sherrod Brown, Giving Republicans Control of Senate

Republican Bernie Moreno has won the Ohio Senate seat as the state was also called for former President Donald Trump.

The Ohio Senate contest was seen as one of the toughest for Democrats in the 2024 election, with Brown running for reelection in a red-leaning state that went for Donald Trump by margins of about 8 points in 2016 and 2020. While Brown previously won reelection in 2018 during the Trump era, this was the first election where the Democrat shared the ballot with the former president.

Moreno winning his race will give Republicans control of the Senate.

Polls consistently showed a tight race, with the two candidates roughly tied or one narrowly ahead, and many analysts viewed the race as one of the GOP's best pickup opportunities in this election cycle. Because the Democrats only narrowly control the Senate in a 51-49 majority, the race has been closely monitored as one that was expected to help determine which party will control the legislative chamber.

Fox News called the race for Moreno just past 11 p.m. ET and the Associated Press and NBC News also called the race for Moreno.

Brown, one of Ohio's longest-serving politicians, aimed to play up his support for unions and labor rights throughout the campaign. He also highlighted his efforts at being bipartisan and working with Republicans. The Democrat additionally hit his Republican rival hard on the abortion issue, saying Moreno was out of step with the majority of Ohioans who voted to enshrine abortion as a state constitutional right in 2023.

"I'm fighting for progress on the issues that matter most to Ohio workers and families — from higher wages to safer workplaces to protecting retirement benefits and affordable health care that Ohioans have spent their lives working for," Brown wrote in a closing message to voters Tuesday on X (formerly Twitter).

Moreno, a Colombia-born Ohio businessman, attempted to portray his Democratic rival as "too liberal" for the increasingly GOP-leaning state. Notably, former President Barack Obama won Ohio in 2008 and 2012 before it flipped for Trump.

Now, Brown is the only Democrat holding a nonjudicial statewide office in Ohio. Republicans control all branches of the state's government.

Moreno also took aim at Brown over transgender rights, the situation at the southern U.S. border with Mexico and support for aid to foreign countries. The Republican additionally cut ads featuring Trump, whose endorsement had never failed in Ohio. Trump's vice presidential nominee, Ohio Senator JD Vance, was boosted in his GOP primary by the former president and went on to win his Senate race in 2022.

"Sherrod Brown's closing argument is that Ohioans should vote for him because he supported giving hundreds of billions of dollars to foreign countries. He's the classic definition of America last," Brown wrote in a Monday post on X. "I will put Ohio and America first."