Trump-backed businessman Bernie Moreno has taken a nine-point lead over his nearest opponent for Ohio’s Republican U.S. Senate nomination on the eve of the primary, according to an Emerson College poll.
The poll finds Moreno leading the pack with 38 percent support, marking a monumental 15-point surge compared to an earlier Emerson College/Nexstar Media poll published last Wednesday. In the latest poll, State Sen. Matt Dolan (R) comes in second place with 29 percent, up 3 points from last week, followed by Secretary of State Frank LaRose (R) at 12 percent. Another 21 percent of the respondents are undecided.
When Emerson pressed undecided voters on which way they lean, they broke for Dolan over Moreno at 51 percent to 30 percent, while 19 percent selected LaRose. However, when undecided leaners’ responses are included in the full sample of respondents, Moreno leads Dolan 44 percent to 40 percent. LaRose remains in a distant third place with 16 percent in this scenario.
The poll comes days after former President Donald Trump appeared at a Buckeye Values PAC rally for Moreno on Saturday in Dayton, Ohio, where he hyped his candidate and torched Dolan.
“So Bernie’s running against a weak RINO named Matt Dolan. Here’s what I know about Matt Dolan… He’s trying to become the next Mitt Romney. I think Mitt Romney is his hero,” Trump said.
“Matt Dolan once ran for office as a Democrat, and he’s easily pushed around by the woke-left lunatics who renamed his family’s baseball team,” he added.
Dolan’s father, Larry Dolan, owns the Major League Baseball team, the Cleveland Guardians, formerly called the Cleveland Indians. The club caved to cancel culture in 2021 and changed its name to the Guardians.
“My attitude is anybody that changes the name of the Cleveland Indians to the Cleveland Guardians should not be a senator,” Trump added before hammering Dolan on Ukraine and other key issues.
Meanwhile, he praised Moreno’s stances on the border, the American auto industry, crime, China, and election integrity and urged voters to support the “America First champion” at the ballot box on Tuesday.
Moreno’s surge also comes on the heels of an Associated Press smear piece against him that imploded over the weekend.
The poll sampled 450 likely Republican primary voters from March 17-18 and the credibility interval is plus or minus 4.6 percentage points.
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