As the elections get closer, several Senate seats are still wide open. At least three of them are so tight, in fact, that three Democratic senators have decided to skip the Democratic convention altogether, preferring to sit back in their states and strengthen their position come November.
One of them is Democrat Sherrod Brown, who's been a Senator since 2007 and sill holds a 50% to 45% lead over Trump-ally, Bernie Moreno, according to an aggregate of 18 polls published by The Hill.
Moreno has burst onto the scene with immigration as a central issue in his campaign, advocating for strict immigration policies, including requiring legal immigrants to learn English and barring them from government benefits for their first 10 years in the country, Axios reports. Moreno, should be noted, is a Colombian-born immigrant.
As he recently told supporters at a local coffee shop:
"They learn the language, like I did. They assimilate, like I did. They understand the culture, like I did. And when they're ready, they raise their hand and swear allegiance to United States of America, like I did when I was 18 years old."
In addition to his language requirements, Moreno proposes barring individuals from seeking asylum if they cross the U.S. border illegally or fail to apply for protection in another country they traveled through. He also supports forcing migrants to wait outside the U.S. while their asylum cases are processed, even if they comply with the rules.
The Republican's platform includes finishing the construction of former President Trump's border wall and enlisting Mexico's cooperation with the U.S. military to combat drug cartels. Brown has also worked with Republicans to pass legislation to combat fentanyl smuggling, aligning with Trump's vision for more aggressive immigration enforcement if he were to return to office.
Thanks to his policy proposals, Moreno has become a sort of poster boy for anti-immigrant rhetoric and he's not shy about putting controversial statements out there. In a recent post on X, he claimed that Brown and Kamala Harris "destroyed Ohio communities" by "flooding" the state with migrants.
However, as the Ohio Capital Journal points out, "the campaign didn't answer when asked to identify a single Ohio city that had been harmed by migration, where the migrants doing the destruction came from, and how the communities had been harmed."
San Francisco liberal @KamalaHarris and @SherrodBrown destroyed Ohio communities by flooding our state with migrants. pic.twitter.com/1INYyrwsVs
— Team Moreno (@teammoreno2024) July 24, 2024
The race for the Ohio Senate seat has also become highly contested in another measure that goes beyond the polls. Ad-tracking firm AdImpact says the race has already totaled $279 million in ad spending and reservations ($147.4 million for Brown, $132.2 million for Moreno), making it not only the most expensive Senate race this year, but the most expensive Senate election on record, showing just how crucial the result of the swing state is for both parties.
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