Bernie Moreno, the Republican nominee for Senate in the battleground state of Ohio, is facing criticism from Democrats and a prominent fellow Republican over comments he made about suburban women and abortion.
Moreno, who is running against Sen. Sherrod Brown (D) in one of the most competitive Senate contests this fall, reportedly said at a recent campaign event that “a lot of suburban women” are singularly focused on abortion and that “it’s a little crazy.” He also said he does not think abortion is an issue for women who are older than 50.
“Are you trying to lose the election?” former Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley said Tuesday morning on X. “Asking for a friend.”
Haley used the hashtags “#Tonedeaf” and “#DonLemonVibes,” apparently referring to a controversy last year in which then-CNN host Don Lemon said Haley, who was 51 at the time, was not “in her prime.”
Moreno’s comments were reported Monday by the NBC affiliate in Columbus, Ohio, which said they came during a town hall he participated in three days earlier in Warren County, which is outside Cincinnati.
“You know, the left has a lot of single-issue voters,” Moreno said in video published by the TV outlet. “Sadly, by the way, there’s a lot of suburban women, a lot of suburban women that are like, ‘Listen, abortion is it. If I can’t have an abortion in this country whenever I want, I will vote for anybody else.’ … Okay. It’s a little crazy, by the way, but — especially for women that are, like, past 50 — I’m thinking to myself, ‘I don’t think that’s an issue for you.’”
Moreno’s campaign said he was joking.
“Bernie was clearly making a tongue-in-cheek joke about how Sherrod Brown and members of the leftwing media like to pretend that the only issue that matters to women voters is abortion,” Moreno spokesperson Reagan McCarthy said in a statement. Moreno, McCarthy added, believes “that women voters care just as much about the economy, rising prices, crime, and our open southern border as male voters do.”
Democrats are campaigning heavily on abortion rights across the country after the Supreme Court’s 2022 overturning of Roe v. Wade. It has been an especially relevant topic in Ohio, where voters last year approved a constitutional amendment last year to protect abortion access.
Brown, in a statement Tuesday, argued that Moreno’s comment shows he “thinks he knows better than the 57 percent of Ohioans who made themselves clear on this issue” — a reference to the level of support the ballot measure received.
“As a man over the age of 50, I care deeply about a woman’s right to make health care decisions for herself — for my daughters, my granddaughters, and all Ohio women, regardless of their age,” Brown said.
An AARP poll of Ohio in July found that 22 percent of female voters over age 50 considered “abortion and reproductive rights” either the most or the second most important issue in their vote. The leading issues were “immigration and border security” (36 percent) and “inflation and rising prices” (31 percent).
Senate Democrats criticized Moreno’s remarks during a news conference Tuesday in Washington, where they were also asked about former president Donald Trump’s dismissive comments about abortion as an election issue.
“I have no idea what they are talking about,’ said Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), president pro tempore of the Senate. ‘This is a basic health care issue for women in this country. … Women — and many men — are rightfully angry about this, and they will go to the polls on it.”
Haley, the former U.N. ambassador who ran against Trump for the Republican presidential nomination, has long argued her party needs to do better with suburban female voters. In a Fox News interview last month, Haley said Trump needed to focus more on reaching out to a “target market” including suburban women.
Lemon, the CNN host who criticized Haley’s age, expressed regret for his comment afterward, calling it “inartful and irrelevant.” CNN fired Lemon months later in a departure in which he claimed there were unspecified “larger issues at work.”