Donald Trump-backed Senate Republican candidate Bernie Moreno, who won a tough primary race last week in Ohio, refused to say if he believes the 2020 presidential election was stolen from the former president.
“Oh my gosh, are we talking about that? We’ve had like three elections since then,” he told CNN last week as he departed a meeting of the Republican conference in the Capitol. “The reality is, we’re gonna look to the future. The people in Ohio, what they care about is when they go to McDonald’s, they can’t afford French fries.”
Pressed to say yes or no if it was stolen, he didn’t answer directly, and entered the office of Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell.
“This is not the topic I think people think about,” he said.
In January, Moreno’s campaign released a digital ad in which Moreno looked directly into the camera and said, “President Trump says the election was stolen, and he’s right.”
The primary pitted Moreno against more establishment Republican candidates such as Matt Dolan. Asked if he has enough support from establishment Republicans now to win the race, he was upbeat about his prospects and took a shot at Democrats.
“Oh, yeah. Because we’re gonna bring the entirety of the party together. That’s what we do. You know, it’s like. it’s good to be a Republican, you get to have a spirited debate as to who your candidate should be,” he said. “Democrats, they sit in a wine cellar in Martha’s Vineyard to pick their candidate.”
In the meeting with Senate Republicans, Moreno said he talked about his “overwhelming victory, and I hope to be a positive colleague and make sure we get our majority back.”
CNN’s Manu Raju contributed to this report.
