Who is Bernie Moreno? The winner of Ohio’s Republican US Senate primary – who will face off against Democrat Sherrod Brown – is a Maga supporter who once called Donald Trump a ‘lunatic’ and a ‘maniac’
Maga firebrand Bernie Moreno has the hopes of the Republican Party on his shoulders after winning Ohio’s Republican US Senate primary in March.
But his political career has seen a lot of controversy and U-turns as the 57-year-old not only spent millions of his own money on his campaign, but also had to settle party fears about having potentially sought out gay sex in the noughties via a hook-up site.
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Why is Bernie Moreno’s win so critical?
Ohio, once known as a key swing state – meaning that it had strong ties to both Republican and Democratic parties, resulting in political parties giving it extra attention – has been leaning right in the last few years, per Time.
The outcome of the contest between Moreno and Brown could ultimately decide control of the US Senate. Per The Washington Post, Democrats have a narrow voting majority in the Senate, making Ohio a target for the Republican Party.
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Bernie Moreno’s history of flip-flopping
Moreno’s past is filled with such flip-flops. Per Cleveland.com, his company once supported the Equality Act, a proposed state bill that would make discriminating against gay people illegal. In a 2016 piece published in New American Economy, Moreno was also quoted arguing in favour of a pathway to residency for illegal immigrants, based on a merit system. In 2017, per Cleveland.com, he spoke about the racism he had experienced as an immigrant in the US.
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Yet, during Moreno’s 2021 campaign, the candidate for Ohio Senate called out immigrants, saying “illegals” were going to “take your job”. He has refused to say whether he believes that Trump lost the 2020 election or it was stolen, and has since aligned himself with anti-LBGTQ+ organisations.
Did Bernie Moreno really seek out gay sex?
As reported by AP and other outlets earlier this month, Moreno’s email was used to create a 2008 profile seeking “men for one-on-one sex” on the hook-up site Adult Friend Finder. According to AP, Moreno’s camp said the account’s creation was a “juvenile prank” by a former intern.
Despite this explanation, the incident became a concern for ultraconservative Republicans, who questioned Moreno’s past support for the LGBTQ+ community. As elaborated by AP, examples include his business donating to the 2014 Gay Games in Cleveland and Akron; his slamming of hate speech directed towards gay and trans students at Cleveland State University in 2017; and, in 2016, noting that his eldest son is gay.
Such comments are just another demonstration of how Moreno has flip-flopped, now that he has aligned himself with anti-LGBTQ+ organisations and slammed LGBTQ+ rights activists for their “radical” agenda of “indoctrination”, per Glaad.
Bernie Moreno’s anti-abortion stance
Moreno’s hard-hitting, far-right beliefs have extended to his support for banning abortion with zero exceptions. During a 2022 interview on 55KRC Radio in Cincinnati, he said that he was in the camp of “absolute pro-life – no exceptions”. This stance indicates that even when a woman’s life is in danger if she proceeds with a pregnancy, or when a woman or girl was raped or the victim of incest, abortion should not be an option.
“Abortion is murder. Every life is precious. And no one should decide who lives and who dies except for God,” Breitbart quoted Moreno as saying in 2021.
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Reparations for families of white civil war soldiers
In April last year, Moreno commented that white descendants of soldiers who fought in the American civil war for people who were enslaved should receive financial compensation. Per Fox News, Moreno claimed, “White people died to free Black people.” He added that there was a narrative that America was a “racist, broken country”, yet history showed that white people fighting for the North had lost their lives to help Black people.
Interestingly, he doesn’t appear to have suggested that African-Americans receive any reparations for their ancestors’ treatment; the Cincinnati Enquirer estimates that 10 million were enslaved in the US throughout history.
So what is Bernie Moreno’s background?
Born in 1967 in Bogota, Colombia, Moreno has often remarked on how he had massive generational wealth growing up. His father, Bernardo Moreno Sr, was a doctor and high-ranking government official, per Cleveland.com. But when little Bernie was five years old, the family moved to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, because – the publication continues – his mother didn’t want her seven children to grow up spoiled.
In a 2020 podcast interview with the Up2 Foundation, Moreno spoke about how he bought his first Mercedes-Benz showroom and turned it around, eventually building a successful car showroom empire. In 2019, he sold his showroom franchises to focus on building a blockchain-based tech company, per Cleveland.com.
Bernie is married to Bridget Moreno (née Brickley) and the couple have four children together. In the interview with the Up2 Foundation, he referred to his wife as his best friend, saying she keeps him grounded.
- Moreno’s contest against the incumbent senator for Ohio, Brown, will potentially determine who controls the US Senate, based on the Democrats’ current narrow voting majority
- The ‘absolute pro-life’ Republican has taken an anti-LGBT stance despite having a gay son, and was himself linked to a dating profile seeking gay sex in the noughties, though his team claimed it was a prank