Republican U.S. Senate candidate Bernie Moreno is finding out it's not always a picnic being the frontrunner in politics.
Even if the world of Ohio politics is not sure that you really are.
Just acting like a frontrunner makes a candidate a target, with Republican opponents and Ohio Democrats throwing accusations at you, like tossing a pot of spaghetti against the wall to see how much sticks.
Moreno faces two GOP opponents in the March 19 primary — Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose and State Sen. Matt Dolan of Chagrin Falls.
The winner of that primary election will face Democratic incumbent Sherrod Brown in the November election in a high-stakes contest which could very well decide which political party controls the U.S. Senate next year.
Moreno, the 57-year-old immigrant from Colombia, is fabulously wealthy, getting rich in the business of selling luxury cars and dabbling for a while in bitcoin, allowing him to loan millions to his campaign.
But that is not the superpower of his "frontrunner" status in the March 19 Ohio primary.
The wind beneath the Clevelander's wings is getting the endorsement of Donald Trump, the criminally indicted former president who has won Ohio's electoral votes not once, but twice.
ANALYSIS: Trump looks to go 2-for-2 in choosing Ohio's next U.S. senator
Trump, on his social media platform, wrote that Moreno will "fight the corrupt Deep State that is destroying our Country."
"President Trump's endorsement is the most powerful and influential endorsement in Republican politics, and Bernie is proud to have earned it," said Reagan McCarthy, communications director for the Moreno campaign.
"Hardworking Ohioans know that they were better off under President Trump, and our campaign has seen momentum following President Trump’s resounding endorsement of Bernie."
The endorsement made Moreno one very happy candidate.
And it was a gut punch to LaRose, who seemed almost desperate at times to win Trump's endorsement and the support of Ohio's MAGA voters.
Dolan didn't particularly care; he knew he was not going to get the Trump endorsement. When Dolan ran unsuccessfully in 2022 in a GOP primary for Rob Portman's Senate seat, he was the only candidate in a crowded field who didn't court the ex-president.
"I couldn’t be more grateful or more humbled to have the complete and total endorsement of President Donald Trump at this vital moment in the campaign," Moreno said after Trump's endorsement in December.
However, eight years ago, when Trump was running for president for the first time, Moreno wasn't exactly on board the MAGA bus. Back then, he called Trump "a lunatic invading the party," among other things.
But he's not the first Republican to do a 180 on the subject of Donald Trump. J.D. Vance, the venture capitalist who was lifted out of a crowded field of Senate candidates two years ago by a Trump endorsement, also used to say nasty things about the ex-president.
Now, Vance is one of the most reliable Trump mouthpieces in the U.S. Senate and is even being talked about as a potential running mate for Trump in 2024. Vance, not surprisingly, also endorsed Moreno in the March 19 primary (and well before Trump did).
Moreno has another Trump connection — his daughter, Elizabeth Moreno Miller, worked for the Republican National Committee during Trump's campaign and is married to Max Miller, a Trump White House aide who is now a congressman from northeast Ohio.
Moreno's Republican primary opponents and the Ohio Democratic Party have attacked Moreno on lawsuits by employees of a Massachusetts car dealership claiming he didn’t pay them the overtime money they were entitled to.
ANALYSIS: Why did J.D. Vance endorse Bernie Moreno so early?
A few months before he entered this race, Moreno settled a dozen of the cases. That came after a jury ordered him to pay $400,000 to two former employees for not paying them overtime.
In a deposition in that case, Moreno admitted to shredding some documents after he had been told to preserve everything that might be relevant to the case. He was admonished by the judge.
Moreno's communications director said both the media and his opponents are distorting the truth on the lawsuits.
"It's no surprise that the leftwing media is running the same lie-filled playbook against Bernie's business background as they have against President Trump over the past eight years," McCarthy said in a written statement. "But what is both surprising and pathetic, is that Bernie's two supposedly Republican opponents are so desperate to save their flailing campaign's [sic], that they would repeat those very smears from the far-left media."
The Ohio Democratic Party has been hammering at Moreno for his statements that, if elected to the Senate, he would vote for a national abortion ban after making statements in December saying abortion is a matter that should be left up to the states.
Moreno is not alone — LaRose and Dolan have said they could support a national abortion ban at 15 weeks.
"Bernie Moreno has made it clear that he won't fight for Ohioans and would overrule them by voting for a national abortion ban," said Katie Smith, a spokeswoman for the Democratic Party.
Again, Moreno's communications director said his position on abortion is being distorted.
ANALYSIS: Analysis: Can an anti-abortion rights Republican win a Senate race in Ohio?
"Bernie is proudly Pro-Life and believes in the three common-sense exceptions for abortion: rape, incest, and the life of the mother," McCarthy wrote. "As Bernie has already said, if a 15-week bill came to the Senate floor with common sense restrictions (similar to the most liberal European countries) to stop late term abortions and included these exceptions, he would support it."
It is reasonable to ask one question of all three Republican senate candidates on the March primary ballot: Why would you go out of your way to support a national abortion ban in a state where 57% of voters — Democrats and Republicans — voted last November for a state constitutional amendment on abortion rights?
Early voting in this campaign begins next Wednesday, running through March 19, Election Day.
If Bernie Moreno is, in fact, the frontrunner in this race, he has a little over a month to fend off attacks and prove it.
