The following article was originally published in the Ohio Capital Journal and published on News5Cleveland.com under a content-sharing agreement.
This week, while the American political conversation was focused on the Republican National Convention and Donald Trump’s pick for vice president, political campaigns turned in their campaign finance reports for the second quarter. In Ohio’s marquee U.S. Senate race, Republican challenger Bernie Moreno’s campaign said it brought in about $6.8 million between a pair of fundraising committees. That’s a little more than half what U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown raised during the same timeframe.
Top line figures
During the second quarter, Brown’s campaign raised $12.8 million, and it heads into the summer with $10.7 million in cash on hand. Brown’s committee has no outstanding debts. In a statement, Brown’s campaign manager Rachel Petri described his “unprecedented grassroots support” and pointed to his record protecting pensions and reproductive rights.
Notably, with President Biden facing significant questions about his candidacy, Petri also emphasized Brown “standing up to presidents of both parties to block bad trade deals that rip off Ohio workers.”
A little more than $4.6 million of Brown’s fundraising the quarter came through the Democratic fundraising platform ActBlue. The average contribution amount was about $120. Brown also raised about $1 million from various PACs including several associated with fellow senators, organized labor and the banking industry — Brown chairs the Senate banking committee.
Moreno raised money through two vehicles, the standard campaign committee and a joint fundraising effort called Team Moreno.
The latter combines Moreno’s principal committee, the Ohio Republican Party, the National Republican Senatorial Committee which supports GOP Senate candidates around the country, and the Best at Bringing Entrepreneurial Results Never Imagined or Envisioned PAC. That title, with a bit of clever work with the initials spells out “BERNIE PAC”. The arrangement allows Team Moreno to solicit larger checks by combining each organization’s maximum donation amount, and then it can split up the proceeds after the fact.
That joint effort has been a crucial lifeline for Moreno’s campaign. During the second quarter, his principal campaign committee brought in $4.4 million. But a little more than $2 million of that came from transfers from the joint fundraising committee. In terms of direct fundraising, Moreno’s main committee raised only about $1.9 million.
In a statement Moreno’s campaign manager Bryan Gray emphasized the scope of their support.
“We are grateful for the support of Ohioans in all 88 counties who are ready to fire Sherrod Brown and send an outsider to the Senate,” Gray said. “Bernie will not be outworked and will continue to share his clear message of a growing economy, secure borders, and American energy dominance across our state, while Sherrod Brown runs away from his hideous record of voting with Joe Biden nearly 100 percent of the time.”
Notably, even with the transfers from the joint fundraising committee, Moreno’s main organization is underwater. The candidate previously loaned the committee $4.5 million of his own money and it reports $4.4 million in cash on hand.
Spending
If this sounds familiar — GOP newcomer turning in lackluster fundraising figures against a well-established Democratic officeholder — that’s because it is. And the most recent example demonstrated the money coming in over the summer doesn’t determine the outcome in November.
In 2022, Democratic former U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan raised millions more than his Republican opponent J.D. Vance. Come November, Vance won comfortably, and things have been going pretty well for him of late.
A big reason Vance was able to compete in that race was the help of outside groups like the Senate Leadership Fund, a super PAC controlled by former Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to help promote Republican U.S. Senate candidates.
So far outside groups have spent relatively little on Ohio’s general election campaign, but they’ve put more oomph behind Moreno. All told, organizations have spent close to $3 million in support of Moreno and another $2 million attacking Brown. The Koch-network funded Americans for Prosperity leads the pack with roughly $2.5 million spent so far. Buckeye Values PAC, a super PAC supporting Moreno has spent about $1.4 million on ads attacking Brown.
To put that in perspective, Moreno’s campaign spent less than $1 million on campaign advertising during the quarter whether on television, digital or direct mail.
On the other side of the race, outside groups have spent only about a quarter million dollars in support of Brown. Instead, his campaign has shelled out more than $14 million in different forms of campaign advertising.
But outside spending seems certain to play a much bigger role in the race as we near election day. The race in Ohio could determine control of the U.S. Senate, and both Republican and Democratic-aligned groups seem ready to spend heavily to get their candidate into office. According to the advertising tracker AdImpact, right and left leaning groups have reserved more than $90 million each in airtime ahead of the election.
