Call Me Stormy

Republicans Seize The Senate

Republican Bernie Moreno ousted Democrat Sherrod Brown Tuesday night, taking the U.S. Senate seat from Ohio that Brown had held since the year 2007. This was the most expensive Senate race on the ballot this year, as Brown had amassed a war chest approaching $85 million. He had access to a vast pool of donations as the chairman of the powerful Senate Banking Committee.

But all that money couldn’t buy Brown his seat. With 91 percent of the votes counted, Moreno led Brown by a vote tally of 2,651,815 to 2,417,646, or 51 percent to 46 percent, with the Libertarian Party candidate taking most of the balance of votes. This was a dirty and combative campaign — Moreno attacked largely on the issue of abortion, while Brown suffered from his involvement with the Democrats’ disastrous open borders policies.

As midnight approached, it appeared as if the Republicans would have a clear majority and take command of the U.S. Senate. In West Virginia, another U.S. Senate seat flipped as Gov. Jim Justice easily won the seat formerly held by Joe Manchin, who retired. The incumbent Democratic Senator from Montana, Jon Tester, also trailed his Republican opponent Tim Sheehy.

The only question that remained: How large a lead would the GOP get? They were running close races in several other states, and looked likely to take seats in Pennsylvania and possibly Wisconsin, and the Michigan race was a dead-heat. All of those races remained too close to call as of 1 am. Here’s a look at a wrapup to the Ohio Senate debate, aired by WCPO in Cincinnati.