Bernie Moreno, a Republican, won the GOP primary for a U.S. Senate seat from Ohio, despite a recent discovery of a 2008 profile using his name and email address to seek sex with men.
Moreno has received 50.6% of the vote in Ohio, with 96% of precincts reporting, putting him well ahead of the second-place candidate, state Sen. Matt Dolan, who has 32.8% of the vote.
Earlier this month, the Associated Press revealed a 2008 online dating profile on Adult Friend Finder seeking one-on-one sexual encounters with young guys. The profile was set up using Moreno's work email, according to the AP.
The profile, under the username “nardo19672,” includes a message looking for young guys while traveling. The username seems to refer to Moreno's full first name, Bernardo, and his birth month and year. The profile also lists his birth date but has no photo. Geolocation data indicates it was set up in a part of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, where Moreno's parents owned a home in 2008, and has not been accessed since it was created over 15 years ago.
Moreno's lawyer, Charles Harder, stated that an intern at Moreno's company in late 2008, Dan Ricci, created the Adult Friend Finder profile.
Ricci, who donated $6,599 to Moreno's Senate campaign in 2023, admitted to creating the profile as an aborted prank on Moreno, his friend and former boss, nearly two decades ago.
Before his first Senate run in 2021, Moreno, who has said his eldest son is gay, was a strong supporter of LGBTQ+ rights. However, during his current campaign, he accused LGBTQ+ rights advocates of promoting a radical agenda of indoctrination and labeled his primary opponents as supporters of a radical trans agenda. He has the support of the anti-LGBTQ+ group Ohio Values Voters.
An endorsement from former president and current presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump boosted Moreno's position as a frontrunner for Ohio’s highly contested Senate seat this year.
Moreno will compete against incumbent Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) in the upcoming general election.
In other primary results, Trump received 79% of the vote in Ohio, despite all his opponents having dropped out of the race.
He also got 81% of the vote in Florida, his home state, with Nikki Haley getting 155,461 votes, even though she dropped out several weeks ago.
In Arizona, Trump obtained 78% of the vote, losing over 100,000 votes to Haley.
