Who will win the Senate race in Ohio? Moreno vs. Brown as Trump wins the state

Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown trails Republican Bernie Moreno as the state of Ohio was named for former President Donald Trump.

Ohio's Senate contest was considered one of the toughest for Democrats in the 2024 election. Brown was running for re-election in a state where the majority of voters were in the red and which won by a margin of 10,000 in 2016 and 2020 about eight points for Donald Trump. While Brown previously won re-election in 2018, during the Trump era, this was the first election in which the Democrat shared the ballot with the former president.

Polls consistently showed a tight race, with the two candidates roughly tied or one narrowly ahead, and many analysts viewed the race as one of the best chances for Republicans to advance this election cycle. With Democrats narrowly controlling the Senate by a majority of 51-49, the race has been closely watched as it is expected to help determine which party will control the legislative chamber.

With 83 percent of votes counted, Moreno was ahead of Brown with 51 percent of the vote, according to NBC News projections.

Brown, one of Ohio's longest-serving politicians, wanted to make clear his support for unions and labor rights throughout the campaign. He also emphasized his efforts to be bipartisan and work with Republicans. The Democrat also hit his Republican rival hard on the abortion issue, saying Moreno was out of step with the majority of Ohioans who voted to make abortion a state constitutional right in 2023.

“I am fighting for progress on the issues that matter most to Ohio workers and families – from higher wages to safer workplaces to protecting retirement savings and affordable health care that Ohioans have worked their lives for,” Brown wrote in a final message to voters Tuesday on X (formerly Twitter).

Moreno, a Colombian-born businessman from Ohio, sought to portray his Democratic rival as “too liberal” for the increasingly Republican state. Notably, former President Barack Obama won Ohio in 2008 and 2012 before Trump took over.

Now Brown is the only Democrat to hold nonjudicial statewide office in Ohio. Republicans control all branches of state government.

Moreno also criticized Brown over transgender rights, the situation at the U.S. southern border with Mexico and support for aid to foreign countries. The Republican also cut ads featuring Trump, whose support in Ohio had never failed. Trump's vice presidential nominee, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, was endorsed by the former president in his GOP primary and won his Senate race in 2022.

“Sherrod Brown’s closing argument is that Ohioans should vote for him because he supports donating hundreds of billions of dollars to foreign countries. He is the classic definition of America last,” Brown wrote in a Monday post on X. “I'm going to call Ohio and America first.”