Democrats fight for foothold in increasingly conservative Ohio

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Dave Bradley remembers the day he met Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown.

It was back in 2010, during Brown’s first term, and Bradley was at the now-shuttered GE Lighting plant in Bucyrus, Ohio, where he worked and where the company was investing in fluorescent lighting manufacturing.

The expansion marked an increase in Ohio manufacturing jobs. Bradley recalls Brown greeting attendees at the door.

“It meant a lot to me that he came out for that because it was a significant thing we were doing for Ohio manufacturing,” Bradley said. “And I was glad that he was there to encourage that type of activity.”

Bradley, 64, of Galloway, Ohio, recalled the interaction outside of an early voting location in Franklin County last week after casting his vote for Brown.

He’s part of a key demographic of voters — union workers and blue-collar laborers — that Brown hopes to retain as he looks to keep his Senate seat in a state that has become increasingly Republican since he last ran for reelection.

In 2008, two years after Brown was first elected to the Senate, former President Barack Obama received 51.5 percent of the vote. By contrast, in 2020, Donald Trump received 53.3% of the Ohio vote.

The Brown race is essential in the battle for control of the Senate: Brown, who seeks a fourth term as senator, is one of the most embattled Democratic incumbents, and Republicans view Ohio as one of their best chances to flip a seat. It’s the only Senate seat in the nation that’s rated as a Toss-up by Inside Elections with Nathan L. Gonzales.

Brown faces businessman Bernie Moreno, a Colombian immigrant who moved to America at 5 years old. It’s Moreno’s second bid for one of Ohio’s Senate seats after he dropped out of the Republican primary to fill the seat that eventually went to vice presidential nominee JD Vance.

The competition is the most expensive non-presidential race in the country: Nearly $294 million has been funneled into the state by outside parties, according to OpenSecrets. The second-most expensive race, the Pennsylvania Senate contest between incumbent Bob Casey and businessman Dave McCormick, has seen more than $77 million less in outside funding.

The Brown campaign has spent nearly $87 million during this election cycle, while the Moreno campaign has dropped more than $21 million on the race.

Looking to labor

Brown is the only Democrat currently serving in a statewide elected office in Ohio, and his relationship with labor groups has taken center stage throughout the race. Speaking outside of Building Laborers’ Local 310’s offices in Cleveland on Sunday, Brown sought to draw a contrast between himself and Moreno, who worked as a car salesman and eventually ran a luxury car dealership chain.

Brown has seized on an overtime pay lawsuit against a Moreno dealership in Massachusetts as evidence that he’s the more labor-friendly candidate. In the suit, a former employee who worked on commission argued that he deserved compensation for working more than 40 hours a week.

Moreno was also sanctioned before the trial for destroying overtime reports years after he sold the dealership in 2018, though his lawyers said the documents didn’t include records regarding salespeople.

“I fought my whole career for the dignity of work,” Brown said in Cleveland. “My opponent stiffed his employees out of $400,000 and then destroyed the evidence that the judge ordered him to provide.”

Moreno maintains that shifting state legal precedent impacted the outcome of the lawsuit — he was ordered to pay two employees $416,000, including attorneys’ fees – and says the shredding of sensitive records was something that “any responsible business” does.

Brown has repeatedly hosted events at union facilities across the state, looking to shore up support with a key demographic that has shifted toward Trump in recent years.

“I work for the public sector,” Berea resident and union member Monica Hogan said ahead of the Brown event in Cleveland. “We need Sherrod back in the Senate, because there’s nobody else that’s going to stand up for those that need it, and some folks just don’t get it.”

Moreno, meanwhile, has taken aim at Brown for economic policies that could appeal to working-class voters, albeit less directly than Brown’s messaging at union events. He criticizes the electric vehicle incentive provisions included in the 2022 budget reconciliation law, also known as the Inflation Reduction Act, saying that Brown “wants us all to drive electric cars” as a way to criticize what he views as a stifling of innovation and consumer desires.

“I ran lots of dealerships,” Moreno told reporters at a Columbus kickoff event for a statewide bus tour. “I’ve never had one customer walk in and ask me what kind of car their politician wanted them to buy. It’s their money. Let the consumers pick the car they want.”

‘Culture wars’ take center stage

Moreno seeks to portray Brown as “too liberal for Ohio” — a phrase that’s proliferated in the tens of millions of dollars in attack ads that have targeted the three-term senator. Ask any Ohioan who owns a TV and it’s not uncommon that they can recite part of an attack ad targeted against one of the candidates, word for word.

One of the most frequent lines of criticism against Brown is his stance on transgender athletes in women’s sports. He’s voted against an amendment that would have blocked federal funding for schools that allow transgender athletes to participate in women’s sports — and so have most Senate Democrats.

The focus on social issues like trans rights and reproductive care has been repeated across the country by Republicans — including by Trump. But it isn’t landing with some Ohio voters.

Brooke Starkoff, a 45-year-old resident of Powell, Ohio, who uses they/them pronouns, cast their early vote last week wearing a shirt that read “Protect trans kids.” Starkoff, who brought their son to early voting, cited human rights as their top issue, saying they would “love to have folks in office who are going to protect all humans.”

Moreno has also come under fire for some of his comments on abortion: In a September town hall, he said it’s a “little crazy” for women, especially those over 50 years old, to be concerned about access to reproductive care. He has since insisted that the comment was intended as a joke, but the remarks recentered abortion access as a top issue during the campaign.

Ohio in 2023 passed a constitutional amendment protecting access to abortion with nearly 57% support — meaning that Democrats could see some support in the red-leaning state from voters who may otherwise skew Republican who see the issue as their top priority.

Still, other voters, like 64-year-old Mark Knore, cite pro-life policies as their top issue this election cycle.

“There’s no discussion about the right to life of the baby,” Knore said in an interview after early voting. “All you hear about is the rights of the mother. Never anything about the baby.”

Regardless of party, multiple voters said they were voting for the candidate that they think will deliver for Ohio.

Sixty-two-year-old Brian Brant argued veteran lawmakers like Brown end up losing touch.

Brant said he voted for Moreno, though he is bothered by some elements of Moreno’s record and wants to see a stronger Republican candidate.

“The two parties have gotten too big, and they need to do something more than just fight for the party,” he said. “They need to fight for the people that put them in office.”

Starkoff said they want to see lawmakers move away from divisiveness and focus more on progress. They see a “blue wave” as the best way to achieve that result.

“We need to get away from the current push for non-politicians, or at least get away from this divide and try to get back to working together and getting things done,” Starkoff said.

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