GOP Senate Nominee Asks Why Older Women Care About Abortion

Republican Senate candidate Bernie Moreno in Ohio questioned last week why older women care so much about abortion rights, saying it was a “little crazy” that some voters cited reproductive rights as their prime issue heading into the November election.

“You know, the left has a lot of single-issue voters,” Moreno said during a town hall event Friday in Warren County, video of which was obtained by WCMH-TV in Columbus, an NBC affiliate. “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.’”

“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,’” he said.

Moreno, 57, is running against Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown. The race will be one of the most-watched during the election as Republicans hope to win back the Senate, and it is already the most expensive of the election cycle thus far. Polling shows a close race with just over a month to go until voters head to the polls.

Brown posted footage of Moreno’s remarks on X (formerly Twitter) on Monday, noting that his opponent thought it was “crazy” to think women wanted to “make their own healthcare decisions.”

Moreno’s campaign cast his remarks as a joke in a statement to WCMH-TV, saying they were meant to target Brown and “members of the left-wing media” that like to “pretend that the only issue that matters to women voters is abortion.”

“Bernie’s view is that women voters care just as much about the economy, rising prices, crime and our open southern border as male voters do, and it’s disgusting that Democrats and their friends in the left-wing media constantly treat all women as if they’re automatically single issue voters on abortion who don’t have other concerns that they vote on,” Reagan McCarthy, a spokesperson for Moreno’s campaign, said in a statement.

About two-thirds of voters who support Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, listed abortion rights as “very important” to their vote in a Pew Research survey earlier this month, while just over one-third of those backing former President Donald Trump said the same.

Other issues were more pressing to a wider swath of Americans, namely the economy, access to health care and appointments to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Trump has continued to tout his appointment of three conservatives to the nation’s highest bench, including three of the justices who joined to end the longstanding national right to an abortion when they struck down Roe v. Wade.