Bernie Moreno launches $25M ad buy as Ohio Senate race heats up

The Ohio Senate race is one of the biggest in the country, but Republican nominee Bernie Moreno has been very quiet on the airwaves since winning the March primary. Until now.

Five months later, he’s finally going on air with a massive ad blitz — a $25 million buy that will include TV, radio, digital, mail and streaming platforms.

His first message: immigration. The 30-second spot , shared first with POLITICO, accuses Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown of "voting with radicals like Kamala Harris" to give undocumented immigrants taxpayer-funded stimulus checks, health care and social security. It touts Moreno's endorsement from former President Donald Trump and promises he will deport "illegals" and build the southern border wall.

Moreno has only spent about $2 million on ads since the grueling March 19 primary in which he beat Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose and state Sen. Matt Dolan. That increasingly nasty race left him with depleted funds, and he needed time to regroup. Avoiding that dynamic was a major part of why national Republicans this cycle put so much money and effort into quashing messy primaries and instead maneuvered to boost their preferred candidates easily to the nomination. The lone exception was in Ohio. Democrats meddled in the GOP primary to boost Moreno, their preferred opponent. And they have spent or reserved a whopping $148 million in ads since the primary to help Brown, one of just two of their incumbents seeking reelection in a state that Donald Trump won.

Moreno's spending will help close that gap. Republicans have booked $136 million since the primary, according to AdImpact, but that is largely from super PACs. Moreno is able to purchase air time at the cheaper candidate rate and thus can run ads more efficiently.

Moreno ended June with $4.4 million in the bank, which won’t cover the bills for those ads. But he won’t need to put up all $25 million to reserve them — he can pay as they air.

Brown has booked some $43 million in ads since April. Democratic ads have sought to discredit Moreno and paint him a sleazy car salesman rather than yoke him to a national Republican party that’s increasingly popular in Ohio.

Like Brown, Democratic incumbents and candidates in major Senate races have enjoyed a hefty fundraising advantage that has helped them dominate the airwaves in key races.

In seven of the eight most competitive Senate races, Democratic candidates have booked far more airtime than their GOP counterparts so far, though super PACs are helping close the gap. For example in Montana, Democratic Sen. Jon Tester has $34.4 million reserved for ads, while Republican Tim Sheehy has less than $10 million, according to the ad-tracking firm AdImpact. And in Nevada, Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen has booked $28.7 million compared to Republican Sam Brown’s $2.5 million.