U.S. Senate race in Ohio heats up

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) -- Ohio’s U.S. Senate race is gaining national attention four months out from the election. Republican Bernie Moreno, challenging incumbent Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), made a stop in Columbus Wednesday morning. Moreno spent the morning calling out Brown for not taking a strong stance on President Joe Biden, calling it a “cover-up.” [...]

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) -- Ohio’s U.S. Senate race is gaining national attention four months out from the election.

Republican Bernie Moreno, challenging incumbent Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), made a stop in Columbus Wednesday morning.

Moreno spent the morning calling out Brown for not taking a strong stance on President Joe Biden, calling it a “cover-up.”

“This is the Watergate moment of our generation, but times ten,” Moreno said.

“I’m not making recommendations,” Brown said. “I am listening and passing it on.”

The fall-out about Biden comes after the first presidential debate last month.

“The reality is, Sherrod Brown has known for at least two or three years that Joe Biden is in a massive cognitive decline,” Moreno said.

“I'm not, I'm not going to judge people in my party what they're saying or what Republicans say,” Brown said.

Moreno thinks simply by the fact that Brown has known Biden for years that he should know about any alleged cognitive decline. Moreno said Brown would have to be “completely blind and deaf” to have not realized it.

“I'm not a pundit,” Brown said. “I've talked to people across Ohio. They have legitimate questions about whether the president should continue his campaign and I’ll keep listening to people.”

“For him to say that he's not commenting on this because he's not, quote, a pundit is absurd on its face,” Moreno said.

In the meantime, as the candidates ramp up their platforms and voters start doing their research, NBC4 asked Moreno how Wednesday’s press conference will help Ohioans understand his platform

“Well, this is important because we have to actually explain to people what's going on,” he said. “This is, again, the greatest cover up in American history.”

Moreno then touted the strength of the platform released earlier this week by the Republican National Committee.

“The 20 points that are outlined in the RNC platform is the greatest Republican platform of my lifetime,” he said. “And that's the, that's the platform that we stand for, regardless of what the media or the Democrats say.”

That platform includes a cut of federal funding to schools that are “pushing critical race theory or radical gender ideology,” “preventing World War three,” and sealing the border.

Brown also supports border policies and has remained supportive of reproductive rights.

Moreno said while abortion is a state’s issue now, he thinks more can be done federally.

“I think we can get to a place where after 15 weeks, there's just some commonsense restrictions, which is the opposite of a ban, by the way, a ban is when you don't allow something,” Moreno said.

Whoever wins the race come November could be consequential in deciding whether Republicans or Democrats hold control of the U.S. Senate.