Trump-endorsed businessman Bernie Moreno will win Ohio’s Republican Senate primary, CBS News projects, setting up a November showdown with incumbent Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown.
Moreno on Tuesday was projected to defeat Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose and state Sen. Matt Dolan.
The contentious primary had become a divisive proxy race between Trump loyalists and the state’s more traditional conservatives.
Moreno had garnered GOP endorsements from Ohio’s junior senator, J.D. Vance, Rep. Jim Jordan, and most notably, former President Donald Trump.
At a rally in Dayton on Saturday headlined by Trump, Moreno said, “This is the last gasp of breath of the swamp RINO establishment in Ohio.” RINO is an acronym for “Republican in Name Only,” a term Trump and his supporters use to describe critics of the former president within the Republican party. “I need you on Tuesday to stab it right in the heart and make it clear that in Ohio, we put America first,” Moreno added.
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, a more establishment Republican, gave his endorsement to a different candidate last week. He and his wife, Fran, chose Dolan for the job, whom Trump also calls a “RINO.”
“We believe this proven conservative is the strongest candidate to beat Sherrod Brown in the fall,” they wrote in a statement.
DeWine, a former senator, lost his seat to Brown in 2006. Brown is now seeking his fourth term in the Senate in a state that trends red but was once considered a battleground state. Brown is the only Democrat who has won a statewide election in Ohio since 2006, aside from the state Supreme Court.
Exit polls: Majority of Ohio Republican primary voters expect a second Trump term to be better than the first
Note: percentages may update as CBS News collects more data.
Republican presidential primary voters in Ohio expect a second Trump term to be better than his first, according to exit polls. This is particularly true of his supporters.
CBS News has estimated that Trump and President Biden are the presumptive nominees, having secured enough delegates to be nominated at their respective parties’ conventions this summer.
About three in four primary voters are satisfied with Trump being their party’s nominee. They overwhelmingly approve of the job he did as president. And most strongly disapprove of the job Mr. Biden is doing as president.
Looking ahead to the general election, 8 in 10 Ohio GOP primary voters say they’ll definitely or probably vote for Trump.
The remaining roughly one in five primary voters are split between voting for Biden or not voting for either Mr. Biden and Trump. It is moderate voters, independents, and those with college degrees who are more likely to say this, but even more of them say they plan to vote for Trump over Mr. Biden in November.
As we’ve seen throughout the Republican primary contests, most Republican primary voters think Trump would be fit for the presidency even if he were convicted of a crime — and that’s the case in Ohio too.
The GOP primary voters in Ohio who would consider him unfit are likely to be Nikki Haley supporters and voters who call themselves moderate — two groups that make up a relatively small share of this electorate.
Exit polls: Most voters in Ohio Senate primary think next senator should show support for Trump
A big majority of those voting in the Ohio Republican primary for U.S. Senate say it’s important that their state’s next senator shows support for Trump, including more than half who feel that’s very important, early exit polls show.
This is particularly true of those who are backing Moreno, who has been endorsed by Trump.
Voters who are more conservative think it’s important for Ohio’s next senator to show support for Trump. This is not important to most moderate voters, but they make up a relatively small percentage of the electorate.
This primary electorate looks similar to what we’ve seen over the course of the presidential primaries so far. Most Ohio GOP primary voters don’t think President Biden legitimately won the 2020 election, and a majority think Trump would be fit to serve as president even if he were convicted of a crime.
Voters who hold these views overwhelmingly think it’s very important that the next Ohio senator show support for Trump.
Most primary voters decided on their Senate candidate a while ago, but more than a quarter tell us they made up their minds in the last week.
Exit polls: Immigration a top issue for Ohio GOP presidential primary voters
While CBS News has estimated that Trump is the Republican Party’s presumptive nominee, with enough delegates to be nominated at the GOP convention this summer, there is a presidential primary in Ohio on Tuesday.
And in that contest, immigration is the top issue for GOP presidential primary voters, picked by 45% of voters, current exit polls show. That’s among the highest percentage we’ve seen in states where exit polls have been conducted.
A majority of Ohio primary voters think most undocumented immigrants in the U.S. should be deported —this has been the case in each of the Republican primary states where exit polls have been conducted.
A look at the candidates running in Ohio’s GOP Senate primary
In 2022, Trump-back candidates swept key primary races, but several eventually lost their general elections — allowing Democrats to deflect the “red wave” Republicans expected.
Vance was an exception. He was first elected to the Senate in 2022 with Trump’s endorsement, defeating Tim Ryan and filling the vacancy left by the retirement of moderate Republican Sen. Rob Portman. Vance won by about 6 points, although Portman defeated Democratic challenger Ted Strickland in 2016 by roughly 37 points. Earlier this month, Portman threw his support behind Dolan.
Although LaRose didn’t receive Trump’s endorsement, a campaign spokesperson said that he’d be a Trump ally if he’s elected to the Senate. The spokesperson called LaRose a “proven conservative who voters can trust.” Trump backed LaRose in the 2022 primary for Secretary of State, and ahead of the 2022 election, LaRose tweeted about the “serious problem” of voter fraud.
LaRose brought in the most money in the last quarter of 2023 but had the least cash on hand among his GOP rivals going into the new year. Unlike LaRose, both Dolan and Moreno had the ability to partially self-fund their campaigns. Dolan’s family owns the Cleveland Guardians baseball team, and Moreno owns a car dealership.
Democrats have also been spending in the Ohio GOP primary.
Last week, Duty and Country PAC went up with an ad touting Trump’s endorsement of Moreno and his support for a national abortion ban. The PAC is funded by a dark money group connected to the campaign arm for Senate Democrats.
This was a successful strategy for Democrats in the 2022 midterm elections when they were expected to lose their majority. In the primaries, they boosted far-right Republican candidates they believed would be easier to beat in general elections.
The Ohio Senate race is one of only three rated “toss-ups” by the Cook Political Report, a non-partisan elections tracker. Brown’s seat is a top target for Republicans who hope to take control of the Senate.
The chair of the Senate Republican campaign arm, Steve Daines, has emphasized the importance of candidate recruitment this cycle — even endorsing in numerous Republican primaries. Still, Daines has not endorsed a candidate in the Ohio race.
In an interview with CBS News’s Major Garrett, Daines called Moreno, Dolan and LaRose “strong candidates.” He added, “But it’s not lost on any of us that when President Trump steps in and endorses a candidate, it is a huge boost to their candidacy. We started with J.D. Vance in 2022. J.D. was not leading in that primary – at that moment, and it was President Trump’s endorsement of J.D. Vance that propelled him to the primary win and the general election win.”
— Jake Rosen, Hunter Woodall, Jennifer De Pinto and Fred Backus contributed to this report.