Bernie Moreno says women are 'single issue voters' for abortion during Ohio town hall

LEBANON, Ohio (WCMH) -- Ohio's Republican candidate for U.S. Senate questioned why a certain group of women would be concerned about abortion during an event in the state.

NBC4 obtained a video recording from a Warren County town hall on Friday, where GOP Senate hopeful Bernie Moreno accused suburban women of being focused solely on their ability to get an abortion.

"You know, the left has a lot of single issue voters," Moreno said. "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.' ... OK. 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.'"

Watch: Bernie Moreno's comments on women and abortion

Katie Paris is the founder of Red, Wine and Blue, a national group of suburban women advertising their mission as ending extremism in public policy. She took issue with Moreno's comments, citing the sizable chunk of state voters that approved adding the right to an abortion to the Ohio Constitution in the 2023 general election.

"What Bernie Moreno said shows that he doesn't respect the 57% of Ohioans who voted to protect our reproductive freedom last year ... I think he is hoping to gain the support of some of those voters," Paris said. "But instead, he just called us, Bernie Moreno just called hundreds of thousands of Ohioans crazy. And the last time I checked, that doesn't go over so well with women."

A spokesperson for Moreno's campaign clarified his comments in a statement to NBC4.

"Bernie was clearly making a tongue-in-cheek joke about how Sherrod Brown and members of the left-wing media like to pretend that the only issue that matters to women voters is abortion," wrote Reagan McCarthy. "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."

Moreno became the Republican contender against incumbent Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown, in what has become 2024's most expensive Senate race. He previously defeated Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose and Ohio Sen. Matt Dolan in the March primary.

Moreno is set to go head-to-head with Brown on Nov. 5. Polling at the beginning of September painted a picture of a close election between the pair that could be determined by undecided voters. Around 10% of respondents said they hadn't picked a candidate, while 45.6% chose Brown and 44.2% chose Moreno. The poll had a +/- 3.1% margin of error.