Three Republicans are competing in the March primary for a chance to run against incumbent and Mansfield-native U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, whose had his position since 2007.
Early voting in Ohio begins Wednesday, and the battleground race is already tight.
An Emerson College Polling survey released Feb. 1, has Brown in the lead by 1-2 percentage points no matter who wins between the three GOP challengers next month.
Frank LaRose
LaRose, 44, currently serves as Secretary of State. He is an Akron-native who graduated from Copley High School and joined the the U.S. Army in 1998, serving with the 101st Airborne Division. Starting in 2003, he served as a Green Beret with the U.S. Army Special Forces.
He served in the military until 2007. In 2010, he was elected as state senator, representing the 27th district.
During his tenure, he was credited with working with Democrats on a law to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation. He also spearheaded an effort to improve civility at the statehouse.
Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose visited Ashland’s board of elections office in 2021.
He voted on the state’s ban on most abortions, sponsored a bill to prevent abortions when there’s a diagnosis of Down Syndrome and became a champion of redistricting reform.
Foreshadowing his next political move, he pushed for online voter registration and sponsored a bill to shorten early voting by a week.
He was elected Ohio’s Secretary of State in 2018. In his first year in office he promoted automatic voter registration.
That year he also promoted flagging registered voters he said weren’t citizens — a policy he now opposes.
In 2020, he stood in the center of a bitter fight over whether to hold a primary during the COVID-19 pandemic. He then navigated lawsuits and prepared election officials for an influx of mail-in voting and pushed back against claims the mail-in voting system would lead to fraud.
When he ran for re-election in 2022, LaRose earned an endorsement from former president Donald Trump.
His campaign for U.S. Senator revolves around three prongs, according to a story published in the Columbus Dispatch .
- The economy: LaRose says Biden doesn’t understand Ohioans who are spending more on groceries and gas
- Immigration: says his military background qualifies him to help secure the U.S.-Mexico border
- Parents rights: says schools are teaching children a “skewed version of American history.”
LaRose raised $1.8 million between July 1 to Dec. 31, 2023, according to the Federal Elections Commission. He has used $250,000 of his own money.
Bernie Moreno
Moreno, 57, was born in Bogota, Colombia before his family moved to Florida when he was five, according to a cleveland.com article.
He moved to Cleveland in 2005 with his wife, Bridget, to help turn around a struggling Mercedes-Benz dealership in North Olmstead.
He succeeded, but eventually sold off his dealerships from 2016-2019, making an estimated “couple hundred million bucks,” according to an industry expert quoted in Automotive News.
Moreno then ventured into blockchain, a digital ledger of cryptocurrency transactions that is maintained across a worldwide network. He founded Champ Titles, a company that finds digital solutions to the auto title industry. Moreno has said he recently sold the company, which he stated is worth more than $100 million.
His next venture involved politics in 2021, his sights set on Rob Portman’s U.S. Senate seat. He dropped out of the race before the primary, despite having spent millions of his own money.
This time around, he has landed endorsements from several republicans, including heavy hitters like former president Trump, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and J.D. Vance.
His stated reason for running, based off his campaign website is “because, for too long, the men and women who move Ohio forward, American workers, have been left behind by career politicians like Sherrod Brown and Joe Biden.”
Moreno lists 15 priorities on his website that he states will achieve a “simple concept: what is good for American workers and families?”
The priorities include securing the U.S.-Mexican border, empowering parents’ educational choices, beating “communist China,” restoring manufacturing in America, ending “wokeness” and enacting term limits for members of Congress, among others.
Campaign finance reports show Moreno raised $7.2 million between February 2023 and Dec. 31, 2023, which includes $3 million of his own money.
Matt Dolan
Dolan, 59, is a Cleveland-native attorney and state legislator. He was first elected to the Ohio House of Representatives, 98th district, in 2004.
He was re-elected in 2006 and 2008 before resigning in January 2010 to focus on a bid for Cuyahoga County Executive. He lost that race to Lakewood Mayor Ed Fitzgerald.
His father, Larry Dolan, bought the Cleveland Guardians in 2000 and gave him a partial stake in the team. From 2010 to 2016, he worked for the team, overseeing the budget and running the team’s charity program, according to a 2016 article published in 3rd Rail Politics.
In 2016, Dolan edged primary challengers Nan Baker and Mike Dovilla to succeed state Sen. Tom Patton. He has served the state Senate’s 24th district since then.
He’s sponsored and supported legislation surrounding school choice, training Ohio’s workforce and funding police. In 2022, Dolan introduced a bill that aimed at expanding mental health services and reducing gun violence.
In 2021, Dolan declared his candidacy for the 2022 U.S. Senate election in Ohio, joining a crowded GOP primary. He was the only candidate that did not fully support Trump, but he said he voted for the former president in 2016 and 2020.
He ultimately lost the primary, coming in third, behind J.D. Vance and Josh Mandel.
Dolan’s platform is similar to his opponents’. He lists border security, small business, law enforcement, pro-life, standing up to China and supporting veterans as priorities, among others.
Dolan, whose extended family was ranked by Forbes as the 114th richest in the U.S. in 2015, raised the most between his GOP challengers. Campaign finance records show he raised $9.1 million in 2023, which included $3 million of his own money.
As a community development group committed to growing Mansfield, NECIC sees civic engagement as vital for a healthy community. Rooted in the North End, their efforts benefit North Central Ohio and beyond. They promote informed voter turnout for a thriving society. Explore at www.necic-ohio.org.