Bernie Moreno, 2024 US Senate candidate, speaks in Lancaster, Ohio
US Senate candidate Bernie Moreno declares he will only serve two terms; calls on Biden during campaign stop in Lancaster, Ohio, August 9, 2024
There are a few things Bernie Moreno wants Ohio voters to know about himself.
He built a chain of luxury car dealerships. He is a father and husband whose wife, he jokes, would leave him if he served more than two terms in the U.S. Senate. When he was a child, Moreno and his family emigrated from Colombia to the United States in search of a new life.
That last point has in many ways shaped Moreno’s Senate campaign against Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown. He often points out that his family entered the U.S. legally, contrasting it with the illegal immigrants who have drawn the ire of Republicans. Like former President Donald Trump, Moreno paints a picture of chaos at the southern border.
Ohio does not share a border with Mexico, that much is clear. But experts say Republicans’ fixation on immigration has forced Democrats — including Brown — to go on the defensive and take positions that combine Republican warmongering with a humanitarian bent.
Now, ads are running touting Brown’s efforts to stop the fentanyl trade and allocate more resources to border patrol agents. The three-term senator is one of the country’s most vulnerable Democrats, and his re-election campaign against Moreno could determine which party controls the U.S. Senate.
“If it were up to the Democrats, they would never talk about immigration,” says César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández, a professor specializing in immigration law at Ohio State University.
From Colombian wealth to a new beginning in Florida
Moreno has often spoken about his journey from Colombia to South Florida.
Moreno came to the United States with his mother and siblings shortly before his fifth birthday. Life in Colombia was comfortable: He told the Up2 podcast that his parents came from “overly privileged backgrounds” and his father had a job similar to health minister. The family owned several homes in Colombia and his father’s childhood home was so large that it eventually became the German embassy.
But his mother wanted something different for her children, Moreno said – a life where hard work was more important than inherited wealth. That’s how she and her seven children ended up in Fort Lauderdale. Moreno’s father later followed her.
Roberto Moreno, the candidate’s brother and a Colombian construction contractor, told a local media outlet that the move was planned as a temporary move, but circumstances changed. The family was also not new to the United States: Roberto Moreno and two of his siblings were born in Philadelphia while his father was studying surgery.
Moreno previously told USA TODAY Network Ohio that his family’s life changed drastically in Florida. They sold jewelry at flea markets to earn extra money, he said, and Moreno began working when he was 12. His sister, Vicky Stockamore, said she self-funded her community college education because her parents couldn’t afford to help at the time.
But Bernardo and Marta Moreno soon had successful careers in medicine and real estate. According to the Fort Lauderdale News, by 1987, Marta Moreno had sold $80 million worth of real estate in 15 years.
Brown’s allies accused Moreno of painting a rags-to-riches story that was inconsistent with his childhood. And the New York Times found that the family’s time in Florida was more nuanced than Moreno describes: Their first condo had a private beach and pool, and they later moved into a four-bedroom house with the help of Moreno’s step-grandfather.
“Sherrod Brown will never know the sacrifices my parents made to come to the United States,” Moreno said. “It’s a shame that he and his cronies keep slandering them, especially since Sherrod himself grew up with a silver spoon in his mouth as the son of a wealthy doctor.”
Border security dominates Senate election in Ohio
Moreno cites his background when he attacks Brown on border security and calls for the deportation of illegal immigrants – even though he once advocated a path to citizenship for immigrants living here.
Encounters with U.S. Customs and Border Protection have skyrocketed since the border reopened following the COVID-19 pandemic, according to federal data. The year 2023 ended in December with about 301,000 encounters, although that number has slowed in recent months, falling to 104,000 in July.
García Hernández said President Joe Biden has “evolved pretty dramatically” since he promised during the campaign to reverse Trump’s border policies. In recent months, USA TODAY reported, Biden has unveiled plans to protect spouses of undocumented U.S. citizens from deportation while also empowering the U.S. to turn away migrants when the influx is high.
“What politicians in Washington forget is that (the immigration system) actually works quite well for many, many people,” García Hernández said. “That’s easily overlooked because it makes political sense to imagine chaos, confusion and disorder in communities that most of them have never visited.”
Biden and other Democrats, including Brown, supported a bipartisan bill that would have made it harder for people to obtain asylum but would have allowed migrants to stay in the U.S. if they could cite credible fear. Senate Republicans killed the bill after Trump opposed it.
Moreno called the measure a “political ploy” designed to help Biden in the election campaign. He also spoke out against a relief package signed by Biden that included Brown’s fentanyl law. Republican Wood County Sheriff Mark Wasylyshyn said the law was “the most effective I’ve ever seen” to combat fentanyl trafficking.
Still, Moreno and his allies have repeatedly attacked Brown in ads over the border, an issue that many Americans say the administration has handled poorly. Brown accused Republicans of using immigration to distract from other problems such as inflation and high drug prices.
“I honestly don’t know what else Moreno has to criticize,” Brown said. “All of their ads seem to be borderline advertising. I hope we’ll keep working to get the bill passed this fall, but probably not because they’ll block it. Then we’ll work next year to get it passed. But ask him why he’s been talking so much about this issue.”
USA TODAY reporter Riley Beggin contributed.
Haley BeMiller is a reporter for the Ohio Bureau of the USA TODAY Network, which covers the Columbus Dispatch, the Cincinnati Enquirer, the Akron Beacon Journal and 18 other affiliated news organizations across Ohio.
