Moreno Was Gifted A Race Without Abortion Front And Center — Until He Chose To Change That

Last updated: 2024/09/26 at 6:42 AM

It was a gamble when abortion rights groups in Ohio pushed to get an initiative protecting the procedure on the ballot in 2023, rather than waiting for the high-octane 2024 presidential cycle.

But the organizers were calculated in the timing: “All the resources would be focused on Ohio in 2023, since it’s the only show in town,” Leo Jennings, a consultant who worked with the groups, told TPM last year. “They’ll be fragmented across the entire nation in 2024.”

The only downside was depriving Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH), currently in the reelection fight of his life, of running alongside the initiative. The initiative may not have helped Brown directly, in terms of getting more voters friendly to him to the polls: We’ve now seen in many states that voters are comfortable with the cognitive dissonance of voting for abortion rights alongside Republican lawmakers who would restrict them. But it at least would have gotten abortion more into the race’s bloodstream, a topic on which Republican candidate Bernie Moreno is an absolutist (though he has tried to soften that stance for the general electorate).

“It would have made [Brown’s] life a lot easier — I’ve often thought about that,” Dr. Dave Cohen, a professor of political science at the University of Akron, told TPM in a recent interview. “But they wanted to change the law as soon as possible.”

“It could have gotten Bernie Moreno to say more insane stuff,” Lakshya Jain, who does modeling and data analysis at Split Ticket, told TPM of a world where the abortion amendment was on the Ohio ballot in 2024. “In a knock-on effect, it maybe would have helped in that sense.”

We don’t have to engage in such thought exercises after Friday, when Moreno was filmed dismissing suburban women’s focus on abortion rights at a town hall (the local NBC affiliate first published the footage Monday):

“You know, the left has a lot of single issue voters,” Moreno said. “Sadly, by the way, there’s a lot of suburban women, a lot of suburban women that are like, ‘Listen, abortion is it. If I can’t have an abortion in this country whenever I want, I will vote for anybody else.’ … Okay. It’s a little crazy by the way, but — especially for women that are like past 50 — I’m thinking to myself, ‘I don’t think that’s an issue for you.’”

The campaign furiously backpedaled, telling NBC4 that he was “clearly making a tongue-in-cheek joke” about the left thinking that it’s the only issue women care about.

Moreno has to win some of the 57 percent of Ohioans who voted to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution last year. While he was already banking on voters’ willingness to vote for abortion rights and anti-abortion politicians, it certainly isn’t something he’ll be eager to draw attention to in the race’s waning days.

“Bernie Moreno thinks it’s ‘crazy’ that women want to make their own healthcare decisions,” read a post on Brown’s Twitter page, one of many similar flashing neon arrows to Moreno’s gaffe Brown’s team has posted in the past 24 hours.