Rate Ohio Senate - Brown vs Moreno

[Woody]

General election

[Dan the Roman]

Lean R.

This election is going to come down to

A. Whether Trump/Vance going all-out in November to tell Trump voters that Moreno is the Trump candidate limits ticket splitting enough

B. The Margin by which Trump wins

I am unsure Moreno is necessarily weaker than Dolan because most anti-Trump R voters are not going to be voting for any R federally these days. So while there exists a universe of voters who would prefer Dolan to Moreno, it is genuinely unclear if there were ever many possible Biden/Dolan voters.

On the other hand, there clearly are Trump/Brown ones, and the premise of Moreno being weak is that he is Trumpist, yet why would being Trumpy repel Trump voters? Especially voters who literally left the Democratic party out of love of Donald Trump?

Analysts seem to be approaching this race as if it is taking place in Pennsylvania or Arizona, not Ohio. A rich, out-of-touch, establishment moderate does not seem like a superior match for Trump voters than Moreno.

There is another factor worth considering. I believe that Brown's own campaign message is going to be in conflict with Biden's. It is within Joe Biden's interests to polarize the election around Donald Trump personally, but that risks polarizing Trump voters. That may reelect Biden, but also undermine ticket splitting.

[This user has not been convicted of 34 felonies]

Tilt/Lean D. I'm confident Brown and Tester will be re-elected. I don't care what any polls say, I'm going solely off vibes.

[DrScholl]

Lean D. Brown is already putting oppo research out there and there is the issue of Moreno soliciting young men online which is only bound to get worse. Plus Brown is a competent candidate who fits the state.

[S019]

Still Lean Republican, never understood why a Trumpist candidate would be uniquely weak in a state where Trump brought lots of people into the Republican fold.

[Trans Rights Are Human Rights]

Still Lean Republican, never understood why a Trumpist candidate would be uniquely weak in a state where Trump brought lots of people into the Republican fold.

They call him Gay Bernie for a reason. Tilt R, closer to Tilt D than Lean R.

[Pouring Rain and Blairing Music]

Tossup, tilt D if I had to pick

[Dan the Roman]

The Adult Friend Finder thing seems to have died down and has two directions.

1. If it is true, there is virtually zero chance that it was a one-off. Something else will come out over the course of 57-years

2. If it is not, then it becomes an online partisan meme which annoys people and is largely dropped.

Having read through the background of the story including

1. Testimony of the ex-intern
2. Post by the founder of Adult Friend Finder
3. It was up for under 3hrs
4. Moreno was outspoken in support of gay rights until 2021, and his son is gay, he sponsored a lot of groups

I increasingly believe it was a prank. If I am wrong then Moreno will have problems, but if this is it, then hopefully it will trigger a well-deserved backlash.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Agree with what much of liberalrepublican said.

Unless something very unexpected happen, it's very likely that Trump wins Ohio and that Brown outruns Biden. The issue is Trump is likely to win OH by more than Brown outruns Biden. Say Trump wins OH by a similar 8% margin to 2016/2020; this would mean statewide Brown would have to achieve at least an 8% overperformance. These days, those types of overperformances in large geopolitically complex states is pretty rare - sure Collins was able to achieve something larger in 2020, but Maine is much smaller and geopolitically homogenous where local politics and branding makes that more doable.

2022-Sen is a good example of why this is a problem in OH. Ryan actually got respectable overperformances of Biden in most of rural OH, actually hitting the swing benchmarks he needed in a few counties if we assume universal swing is real. His downfall came from the fact he struggled to notably outrun Biden in any of the main urban and suburban OH counties. He ultimately lost by 6%.

Assuming Trump wins OH by a simillar margin to last time, Brown outrunning Biden by 8% in places like Franklin County and Delaware County is a pretty tall order; he's gonna need to consistently be outrunning Biden by like 12% in rural OH to have a shot which will be tricky if Rs federalize the race.

I do still think Brown has a path, especially because in recent years Republicans have frequently screwed up winnable races with incompetence and partisan infighting, and also because there is a chance if Biden is doing well nationally, OH can be kept close enough to where Brown doesn't need any crazy overperformances.

[Progressive Pessimist]

Tilt D at both worst and best.

[AncestralDemocrat.]

Tilt R.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Tilt R.

Every poll has Brown ahead it's not, Vance won solely on DeWine winning by. 30

[YE]

Lean R. Let’s be real - Trump is winning Ohio easily and it’s hard to be confident that Brown will outrun Biden by near double digits in this day and age.

[Dave Hedgehog]

Lean R. Let’s be real - Trump is winning Ohio easily and it’s hard to be confident that Brown will outrun Biden by near double digits in this day and age.

I agree, Moreno was Trump's chosen candidate and he is going to be sticking to Trump like a limpet throughout the entire campaign. With Trump also on the ballot I think that will literally be all he needs to get across the finish line.

My gut feeling is that this time next year Ohio will have two Trumpy U.S. senators who will be representing it for a while to come. There couldn't be any more fitting reflection of the turn this state has taken over the last 8 years.

[xavier110]

Likely R

[Umengus]

likely R, Trump will win bigly and so Moreno.

[ShadowRocket]

Toss-Up/Tilt R

[Mr. Smith]

Likely R, though Brown might be able to overperform Biden by a lot, it's unlikely to be enough to win.

[ProgressiveModerate]

For the people saying lean D because "vibes" or "Brown is a strong candidate/Moreno is bad", those can be true and I nearly everyone on here agrees Brown will outrun Biden, but he'll likely need to outrun Biden by quite a bit. Having a solid overperformance of Biden doesn't necessarily mean victory.

[DrScholl]

The account was set up in Ft. Lauderdale where Moreno's parents lived so the intern excuse is probably a lie. I wouldn't assume this will go away because if he's been on these apps and people have taken screenshots then it will come out.

[ProgressiveModerate]

The account was set up in Ft. Lauderdale where Moreno's parents lived so the intern excuse is probably a lie. I wouldn't assume this will go away because if he's been on these apps and people have taken screenshots then it will come out.

Tbh honest though say the story does evolve and it's shown he was genuinely active on that app to find "friends", would it really matter? A significant chunk of the right has become accepting or at least relatively passive around homosexuality, and most of the far-right folks who might actually care about would still vote for Moreno over Brown just because Trump says so.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Likely R, though Brown might be able to overperform Biden by a lot, it's unlikely to be enough to win.

Every poll has Brown ahead

[Rjjr77]

Donald Trump wins Ohio by 7 points. There is no way Sherrod can flip 7% of Trump voters to him

[Dan the Roman]

The account was set up in Ft. Lauderdale where Moreno's parents lived so the intern excuse is probably a lie. I wouldn't assume this will go away because if he's been on these apps and people have taken screenshots then it will come out.

That was rebutted by the creators of the app on X. They pointed out that there is no meta data behind locations they are merely entered by whoever sets them up.

Which again raises the question why it was only up for 3hr, never used to message anyone,  used a work email, and the intern involved confessed. I would he skeptical of the latter alone, but this story makes very little sense and the degree if credulity it is being given here is a disturbing testament to how strong narrative vibes are "oh random conservative reoublican is gay what a fun joke" regardless of evidence.

Like Moreno was a major figure in funding LGBT causes in the 2010s, his son was gay. This is not some conservative Christian evangelical. He moved in socially liberal circles until 2021 when he went MAGA.

The whole narrative takes Moreno's post 2021 reinvention at face value, which I guess is in some ways a testament to how effective the grift is.

Now I will change my tune if more comes out, but the evidence we have does not support the speculation on this thread or elsewhere.

[Arizona Iced Tea]

The account was set up in Ft. Lauderdale where Moreno's parents lived so the intern excuse is probably a lie. I wouldn't assume this will go away because if he's been on these apps and people have taken screenshots then it will come out.

That was rebutted by the creators of the app on X. They pointed out that there is no meta data behind locations they are merely entered by whoever sets them up.

Which again raises the question why it was only up for 3hr, never used to message anyone,  used a work email, and the intern involved confessed. I would he skeptical of the latter alone, but this story makes very little sense and the degree if credulity it is being given here is a disturbing testament to how strong narrative vibes are "oh random conservative reoublican is gay what a fun joke" regardless of evidence.

Like Moreno was a major figure in funding LGBT causes in the 2010s, his son was gay. This is not some conservative Christian evangelical. He moved in socially liberal circles until 2021 when he went MAGA.

The whole narrative takes Moreno's post 2021 reinvention at face value, which I guess is in some ways a testament to how effective the grift is.

Now I will change my tune if more comes out, but the evidence we have does not support the speculation on this thread or elsewhere.

If Brown went full on mid 2000's blue dog and attacked Moreno with attack ads calling him slurs like f*g and a disgrace to Ohio values he would easily win. Ohio is a socially conservative state and would probably get angry with Moreno. But would the Dems and DSCC be okay with that considering how woke the party has become? The fact that he is closeted could be used to argue that Moreno does not trust the public.

If Brown was just a little bit more socially conservative he could be runnning away with this, against a former liberal.