'Are you trying to lose the election?' Haley rips Senate candidate for remark about women

24 September 2024

One Republican U.S. Senate hopeful in a must-win race recently made a statement painting all women voters with a broad brush, and former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley is urging him to stop harming his candidacy.

On Monday, businessman Bernie Moreno — who is facing off against Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) in November — expressed frustration with women voters, characterizing them as "single-issue" voters when it comes to abortion rights, and even made a dig at women over 50. Moreno made the comment at a town hall in Warren County, Ohio, which is a swing county in the southwestern part of the state.

“You know, the left has a lot of single issue voters,” Moreno told the audience. “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.'”

Haley lambasted Moreno in a tweet on Tuesday including a portion of his comments and a link to an article on local NBC affiliate WCMH.

"Are you trying to lose the election?" She wrote. "Asking for a friend."

Moreno's comment could prove costly in Ohio's Senate race. The Buckeye State is reliably red, having voted for former President Donald Trump in both 2016 and 2020 by comfortable margins. And it has a Republican trifecta state government, in which both chambers of the legislature and the governor's mansion are all under GOP control. But the abortion issue has been described as a "silver bullet" for Democrats.

Despite Ohio losing its swing state status, the 2023 election revealed abortion to be the GOP's Achilles heel. A solid majority of Ohio voters enshrined abortion rights into their state's constitution last fall, continuing abortion rights' undefeated streak on state ballot measures since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022.

Because Republicans are currently 2 seats in the minority in the U.S. Senate, Moreno's campaign is all the more crucial to the GOP in its efforts to retake the upper chamber of Congress. FiveThirtyEight's aggregation of Ohio U.S. Senate polls show the race between Moreno and Brown is within the margin of error, and it could very well be decided by women voter turnout.

Assuming West Virginia's open Senate seat — following the retirement of Sen. Joe Manchin (I-West Virginia) — goes to the GOP this fall, Republicans will only need to flip one more Senate seat in order to retake the majority. This means winning either Ohio's Senate race or defeating Sen. Jon Tester (D-Montana) in November. While Tester is between five and six points behind Republican Tim Sheehy in polls, he leads him in overall cash on hand by roughly $10 million heading into October.

Elsewhere, Republicans are finding themselves in tougher-than-expected Senate races in the reliably red states of Florida and Texas. Former Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell (D-Florida) and Rep. Collin Allred (D-Texas) are both within the margin of error of Sens. Rick Scott (R-Florida) and Ted Cruz (R-Texas)

Click here to read Haley's tweet, and click here to read WCMH's report on Moreno's comments.

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