WASHINGTON (AP) — A strong performance among voters who cast their ballots Tuesday — the day of the election in Ohio — powered Bernie Moreno to a win in the state’s GOP primary for the U.S. Senate.
The Associated Press declared Moreno the winner at 8:35 p.m. EDT, when he led state Sen. Matt Dolan 41% to 37%. Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose was in third place with 22%, and both he and Dolan would fall further behind over the next two hours as more votes were counted.
Moreno is a Cleveland businessman who was endorsed by former President Donald Trump. He will face Democratic U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown in November in what is expected to be one of the country's most competitive contests in the battle for control of the chamber.
The AP was able to call the GOP primary for Moreno by analyzing not just the overall vote totals but also the methods in which voters cast their ballots.
Moreno built a sizable lead among votes cast on election day. Since the issue of early voting became highly politicized after the 2020 presidential election, election day voting has tended to favor Republicans and conservatives, while votes cast before election day have tended to favor Democrats and moderates.
Dolan cast himself as the more moderate option in the primary and performed better in the state's heavily Democratic areas as well as among voters who cast their ballots before election day. In the first vote updates after polls closed at 7:30 p.m. EDT, Dolan built a lead among pre-election day votes.
Over the next hour, Dolan’s lead among pre-election day votes shrank. Moreno took a large lead among votes cast on election day, pushing him ahead of Dolan in the statewide vote.
As more votes were counted, Moreno maintained his statewide lead. With the number of untabulated Dolan-friendly pre-election day votes steadily dwindling and the bulk of the Moreno-friendly election day vote yet to be counted, the prospects for Dolan retaking the lead dissipated, and the AP called the race for Moreno.
Moreno's lead among election day votes continued to grow over the course of the night. He was winning by more than 17 percentage points with nearly 90% of ballots counted. Moreno also took the lead in all 88 of Ohio's counties.
At the time he was declared the winner, Moreno's best performances were in counties that Trump carried in the 2020 general election with 70% of the vote or higher. Moreno was leading in all eight counties that Trump won with 80% or more of the vote. He was also leading in western Ohio and the Ohio Valley area where Republicans tend to perform best.
In order to win as a moderate Republican, Dolan would have needed large margins in the state's more Democratic and swing regions of Ohio, including Cuyahoga, Hamilton and Franklin counties, the homes of Cleveland, Cincinnati and Columbus, respectively. Although he led in these counties initially, he eventually lost the leads in those Democratic strongholds to Moreno.
By comparison, former Ohio Gov. John Kasich, another moderate Republican, had an 18-point lead in the same area when he won the 2016 presidential primary over Trump and conservative U.S. Ted Cruz of Texas.
