Republican Bernie Moreno, a Colombian immigrant who became a high-profile Cleveland car dealer, has unseated Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, NBC News projects. Moreno, who was endorsed by former President Donald Trump earlier this year in the midst of a heated primary, will be the first person of color to represent Ohio in the U.
S. Senate. His victory is a major boost for Republicans in their quest to regain control of the chamber, where Democrats held a one-seat advantage heading into Election Day.
Republicans flipped another Democratic-held seat in a state Trump carried easily, West Virginia, on Tuesday and were aiming to capture another in Montana. Moreno’s victory also ends, for now, the 50-year political career of Brown, first elected as a state representative in the post-Watergate era. Brown was the last of a dying breed in Ohio: a Democrat able to win more than one statewide election.
The state, once a hotly contested battleground that twice backed Barack Obama for president, is now a stomping ground for Republicans, who have a decisive lock on all three branches of government and dominate the state’s congressional delegation. A prominent businessman and civic leader in the Cleveland area, Moreno, 57, spent millions of his own dollars on the campaign but relied heavily on outside Republican groups that spent tens of millions more on advertising hammering Brown. The race hinged on Brown’s familiarity, which the newcomer Moreno framed as a liability.
For decades Brown .
