Bernie Moreno clinches Ohio Senate seat in big win for Republicans

This story originally appeared as part of NPR's live coverage of the 2024 election. For more election coverage from the NPR Network head to our live updates page .

Republican Bernie Moreno has won the Ohio Senate race, defeating Sen. Sherrod Brown, the incumbent Democrat, according to a race call by the Associated Press.

It is a major victory for Republicans and a serious blow to Democrats' efforts to maintain their majority in the Senate.

Moreno, a former car dealership owner, tried throughout the campaign to tie Brown to national Democrat figures, including Vice President Kamala Harris. Moreno, whose family immigrated from Colombia to Florida when he was a young child, spoke frequently on the trail about immigration issues. In one ad, Trump, who endorsed Moreno, appears on video talking about how Moreno will "secure our border" and that Brown is a "radical left politician".

The race was essentially a dead heat ahead of the election, one of the tightest of toss-ups races in the country.

Both parties invested historic levels of spending – pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into the state that was considered the nexus of the battle for control of the Senate.

Brown has been in the Senate for nearly 18 years, flipping a seat in 2006. He went on to win parts of the state that former President Barack Obama failed to carry in 2012. But this was his first election on the same ballot as Former President Trump.