“I cannot vote for someone like that”: Ohio women voters fume at Bernie Moreno’s abortion “joke”

POWELL, Ohio — A small group of Ohioans gathered last Friday morning at the former restaurant-turned-Fred Astaire Dance Studios in Powell, Ohio, a small suburban town some 18 miles north of Columbus, to hear Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown speak alongside local voters in a late-campaign press conference to call out controversial abortion comments made by his challenger, luxury car dealer Bernie Moreno.

The speakers — two central Ohio Republican voters and one Independent — addressed the handful of attendees huddled by the farthest wall from the studio's entrance around the stone brick fireplace and a black podium outfitted with a "Bernie Moreno thinks he knows better than Ohioans" sign.

Ann Fischer, the Independent voter from Dublin, opened the remarks by describing how an abortion once saved her life. 

"I am only able to stand here before you today because I was able to receive a life-saving abortion in 1992 after experiencing an ectopic pregnancy. I could have died and most likely would have died. But at 4 a.m., the emergency surgery saved my life," she said, choking back tears.

"Bernie Moreno is not on our side. He doesn't respect the will of Ohio voters, and he certainly doesn't respect me or the countless women like me for whom this issue isn't hypothetical, it's personal. I cannot vote for someone like that," Fischer said between sniffles, adding: "I'm not going back 50 years. I'm voting for Sherrod Brown."

Though Ohioans officially voted to protect their access to abortion last fall, the hot-button issue has re-entered the fray in the state's Senate race as incumbent progressive Brown and Trump-backed Moreno face off for his seat. The highly contentious toss-up contest, which is key to either party's control over the upper chamber during the next presidency, has hinged on the subject of abortion rights for the last month as Moreno faces backlash over his comments about Ohio women voters.

In a now-viral moment during a Warren County town hall in September, Moreno accused suburban women of being single-issue voters when it comes to abortion rights, singling out older women and calling it "a little crazy" to prioritize abortion access in their voting decisions. 

“You know, the left has a lot of single-issue voters,” Moreno said. “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.’ … OK. 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 comments, first reported by local publication NBC4i, immediately sparked outrage. Earlier this month, more than 1,200 Ohio women across party lines signed an open letter to the Cleveland businessman telling him they didn't find his comments funny and wouldn't be voting for him because of it. 

Since then, Brown's campaign has seized on the ongoing backlash from Moreno's comments, mentioning it in media appearances, hosting events like Friday's presser and running response ads in a bid to show Ohio voters that Moreno is out of touch with their wants before they cast their ballots. 

“While Sherrod stands with the majority of Ohioans who believe that a woman has the right to make her own health care decisions, Moreno has made it clear he thinks he knows better," campaign spokesperson Maggie Amjad told Salon in a statement. "Moreno went so far as to mock Ohio women for caring about this issue and has repeatedly said he will overturn the will of Ohio voters by voting for a national abortion ban and that he is ‘100% pro-life with no exceptions.’” 

A spokesperson for Moreno said at the time of the initial blowback that the businessman made the comment as a "tongue-in-cheek joke about how Sherrod Brown and members of the left-wing media like to pretend the only issue that matters to women voters is abortion." Moreno echoed that sentiment during an appearance on former Fox News host Megyn Kelly's show last week. 

During Friday's event, Brown offered a pithy rebuttal.

"I don't think people should joke about women's health," he told reporters, noting Moreno's stance on abortion. "That's not a joking matter."

The Moreno campaign did not respond to an emailed request for comment.

Brown, who has held elected office in the state since the 1970s, has worked to establish an image as a defender of reproductive health and freedom of choice. Earlier this year, he signed onto a Senate proposal supporting federal birth control protections that Republicans blocked. 

Moreno has voiced support for a 15-week national abortion ban during the state's primary and told a Cincinnati radio host in 2022 that he's "absolute pro-life, no exceptions," according to The Columbus Dispatch. In July, he received an endorsement from SBA Pro-Life America, an anti-abortion organization that has vowed to support candidates who back a 15-week ban. 

For his part, Moreno slightly moderated his stance to align with the national GOP platform as the 2024 election cycle progressed. The luxury car salesman has since indicated he backs the Republican Party policy of allowing states to decide for themselves (though he still personally supports a 15-week ban) and for some exceptions in cases of rape, incest and the pregnant person's health, according to The Hill.

Marcie Seidel, the Republican former chief of staff for the first lady of ex-Ohio Gov. Bob Taft, said in her remarks at Friday's event that she felt insulted by Moreno's September comments and urged her fellow Republicans to vote for Brown. 

While she said she is pro-life herself, she described her stance as all-encompassing, including advocacy for policies that address poverty, housing and food insecurity, improved healthcare for mothers and children, treatment for mental health and substance use disorders, and better gun regulations. "That's pro-life," she said.

Seidel, who voted for Vice President Kamala Harris and said she has never voted for former president Donald Trump, told Salon that she defected from the Republican Party because she could no longer recognize it. She said she rejects the notion that abortion is a single issue.

"It's not just a single issue. It has so many other issues involved in it, and what [Americans] need to know is that personal freedom, I believe, is at stake," she said in an interview, emphasizing that, though she's pro-life and isn't against others opposing abortion, she believes every patient should decide for themselves what's right for them.

"We start taking that freedom away from people — what's next? I don't know," she added.

Ohioans voted 57% to 43% last fall to enshrine a right to reproductive care, including access to abortion care up through the point of fetal viability, into the state's constitution. Voters in the state navigated confusion around the labeling of the ballot issue, a sneaky referendum attempting to raise the threshold for a ballot measure to take effect, and deceiving language approved by Republican Secretary of State Frank LaRose all in an off year.

Delaware County, the Republican-leaning region where Powell sits, had one of the highest rates of voter turnout in the state during that election (60.69%) and overwhelmingly voted to protect abortion access, making the state's paused six-week trigger ban unconstitutional. 

"It's clear that people in Delaware, like people everywhere, believe that decisions should not be made by politicians," Brown told reporters Friday. "These decisions are intensely, intensely personal decisions to be made by women and their doctor securely. That's separated. It's not a partisan issue."

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Brown said he's heard Republicans, Independents and Democrats all speak out for allowing women to make abortion care decisions with their doctors and speak out against Moreno's comments. 

"Ohio women understand the stakes of this election," he added. 

Still, the furor over Moreno's comments and abortion access may not be enough to sway Ohioans amid the barrage of attack ads from both campaigns and their affiliates alongside the state's allegiance to the Republican Party. Polls show Brown and Moreno neck-and-neck, with the Decision Desk HQ and The Hill polling average placing Moreno 0.2 percentage points ahead of Brown. With a national decline in split-ticket voting and a state that overwhelmingly voted to elect Donald Trump in the last two election cycles, the Democrat faces an uphill battle that courting moderate and disaffected Republicans may not be enough to overcome. 

Delaware County, which supported Trump in 2016 and 2020 and backed Brown's challenger in 2018, also makes clear the high stakes of the race for the Cleveland progressive amid his attempts to court Republican voters. 

Peeking out from the red and orange leaves of an unusually warm Ohio autumn, "Trump-Vance" and "Bernie Moreno" signs sporadically dotted yards along the snaking, wooded roads heading east to State Route 315, a main highway of central Ohio. Unlike in the solidly blue capital city just miles south, not a "Sherrod Brown" sign was in sight.