New ads attack Bernie Moreno over report linking his email to adult website

SALEM, Ohio — It took less than a day for the attacks to begin on Senate candidate Bernie Moreno over a report linking his email to an account on an adult website that sought “young guys to have fun with.”

Buckeye Leadership Fund, a super PAC supporting his GOP primary rival Matt Dolan, on Friday began airing TV and radio ads statewide that quote directly from the Associated Press story and call Moreno “creepy” and “damaged goods.”

“Breaking news: A new AP report suggests that Bernie Moreno, a married man, trawled the internet ‘seeking men for one-on-one sex,’ ‘looking for young guys to have fun with while traveling,’” the TV ad narrator says while corresponding excerpts of the story appear on screen above the caption, “Moreno embroiled in scandal.”

Moreno has forcefully denied creating the account in 2008 on Adult Friend Finder, a website typically used to arrange sexual encounters. The campaign said a former Moreno intern created the account as a prank.

A spokesperson for the pro-Dolan super PAC said the new spots are part of a larger ad buy but declined to give a specific amount for the two ads. The group has spent over $7 million, the spokesperson said.

That’s a lot more than the $2.2 million it reported raising as of the latest Federal Election Commission reports in late February, when the bulk of the group’s money had been funded by Dolan’s parents: Eva and Larry Dolan, who own the Cleveland Guardians baseball team, each gave $1 million in December.

Dolan, Moreno and Secretary of State Frank LaRose are in a heated three-way battle for the right to take on Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown. Ohio is a top target for Republicans in their drive to recapture the Senate majority, and Thursday night’s publication of the AP story — days before next Tuesday’s primary election — threatened to plunge an already-nasty race into further chaos.

The three candidates found themselves seated next to each other at the head table of a GOP dinner Friday night in Columbiana County. They did not stay seated for long and quickly got up to work the room before the programming began.

In a brief interview, Dolan said he was unaware of the new TV ad. Campaign finance law prohibits him from coordinating with the group. Asked about the AP article, Dolan declined to take a shot at Moreno.

“I got to focus on me,” Dolan said when asked about the AP story, adding: “I’m gonna focus on my race.”

Moreno on Friday sought to quickly move past the report, proceeding with campaign events without mentioning it in his public remarks. When asked by reporters, he dismissed the article as “a sick, last-minute attack by desperate people.” Former President Donald Trump, who endorsed Moreno, continued to stand by him, with a planned rally in Ohio to support Moreno still on for Saturday.

“We’ve been at this for six weeks. So obviously, we now know what happened,” Moreno said Friday morning at a campaign stop. “It’s 16 years ago. Somebody pulled a prank … why is that a story? It’s a story because President Trump endorsed me.”

Still, the story has raised concerns in some national GOP circles about Moreno’s vulnerability in the general election, and Moreno’s explanation doesn’t fully quell them, according to a Republican strategist unaffiliated in the race. Moreno’s campaign has been reassuring Republicans for weeks that the email address associated with the Adult Friend Finder account was never used to confirm it, the strategist said.

And before the AP story published, a PAC tied to Senate Democrats began spending more than $3 million to produce and air an ad to boost Moreno, a sign they believe he is the weakest foil for Brown. Friday’s ads from the pro-Dolan super PAC note that cross-party meddling, saying “Sherrod Brown will defeat Bernie Moreno.”

The AP only reported that someone with access to Moreno’s email created the account. POLITICO has not independently verified the reporting.

Burgess Everett and Alex Isenstadt contributed to this report.