The Issue 1 campaigns will be competing for time with Ohio’s bitterly contested U.S. Senate race, which is the costliest congressional race in the country. The result is a prodigious, presidential-esque quantity of political ads that Ohioans surely are already sick of.
Something has changed this month that might not be obvious in the cacophony of hyperbolic ads.
Longtime Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown has been airing ads for months while his Republican challenger, Cleveland-area businessman Bernie Moreno, hasn’t.
But starting this month, the Moreno side – for the first time – has way more money to spend.
From Sept. 4 through the end of the month, Republican-aligned groups are spending $59 million on anti-Brown and pro-Moreno ads, according to Medium Buying. That’s compared to $31 million in Democratic-aligned spending.
In an interview Friday, Moreno said unlike past Republican candidates, he thinks he’s now in a financial position to win the race.
“[Brown] had a lot of money. He blew it over the summer, like a typical Democrat, he wasted it,” Moreno said, speaking in Columbus at an event where he announced endorsements from 28 Republican county sheriffs. “We hoarded our resources, and now we have more messaging than he does.”
Moreno’s financial advantage is fueled entirely by outside groups. His biggest backers are Defend American Jobs, a political group tied to the cryptocurrency industry, which spent $22.8 million, and the Senate Leadership Fund ($21.8 million), which has close ties to Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.
Brown’s biggest outside supporter, meanwhile, is WinSenate ($22.9 million), which is closely tied to Democratic Senate Leader Chuck Schumer.
Brown is one of two incumbent Democratic senators who represent states that former president Donald Trump won in 2016 and 2020. Democrats hold a single-seat majority in the Senate. So the money that’s coming to Ohio, despite the state not being seen as competitive in the presidential race, shows how important the race is to national powers that be and the people who fund their campaigns.