BOARDMAN — Republican U.S. Sen. Bernie Moreno said the Democratic Party supports open borders, “transgenderism,” racism, and it wants “to destroy our fossil fuels.”

Moreno spoke at a Tuesday event at the Mahoning County Republican Party headquarters: “Sadly, we have a Democrat Party that’s gone off the rails. But that’s OK because we have a Republican Party that’s now a very broad tent.”

He called Democrats “the full anti-American party,” and the media is complicit in covering it up.

Regarding Democrats, Moreno said, “They don’t believe that you’re black, they don’t believe you’re Latino unless you’re liberal. I think that’s pretty racist.”

Moreno added, “I’ll say something that is just harsh, but the Democrats were the party that didn’t want to get rid of slavery in the first place, and I don’t think that thread has left them, honestly.”

Moreno, who was born in Colombia, said Democrats don’t want immigrants to leave the country because “who’s going to clean our houses and mow our lawns and cook our meals. I’m like, some Latinos can do other things, right? But then we’re the racists.”

Moreno stressed the importance of electing Republicans in the Nov. 3 election, sharply criticizing Democrats Sherrod Brown, who is running for the U.S. Senate, and Amy Acton, who is running for governor.

In the 2024 election, Moreno beat Brown, who was a three-term incumbent senator, by 3.6%. Moreno beat Brown by 220 votes, 0.2%, in Mahoning County.

Brown is challenging U.S. Sen. Jon Husted, a Republican appointed to an open seat in January 2025.

Moreno referred to Brown running again as “a bad ‘Star Wars’ episode where you thought the evil guy had vanished and then the next movie comes out and you’re like where did he come from? In the previous movie, didn’t he go away? There’s never been a scenario where the voters of a state fired an elected official so resoundingly and that elected official immediately turns around and then runs again. That’s crazy. The even crazier part is Sherrod Brown, because he has the media on his side, because he has the entirety of the media on his side, he can go out and run TV ads as if he was never in Washington, D.C.”

Moreno pointed to a commercial in which Brown said he would work to make sure members of Congress couldn’t trade stock.

Moreno said of Brown: “He’s been there for 32 years. Why didn’t you do it then? It’s totally crazy. He’ll say the economy’s rigged. You didn’t do anything about that for 32 years. This is a guy who’s an abject failure.”

Moreno said Brown is “a uniquely hated individual in Washington, D.C. I mean, people do not like him, and now he wants to go back and be in the United States Senate.”

Regarding Acton, who was the state’s health director during the early part of the COVID-19 pandemic, Moreno said: “The idea that we’re whitewashing what Amy Acton did during COVID is a disgrace. She destroyed lives.”

Moreno said Mahoning County is the linchpin for Republicans to win in November. If Husted wins Mahoning County, Moreno said he wins the election. Moreno said the same about Vivek Ramaswamy, the Republican gubernatorial candidate, running against Acton.

By voting for Republicans to control the House, Senate and the White House, Moreno said, “You saved the country.” If Democrats were in control, Moreno said, “This country would be done. It would be over.”

Moreno said he plans to seek reelection in 2030, and after that term ends, he won’t run again.

“This isn’t my political career forever,” he said. “I’ve got one more election in me. I will be there for two terms, and I’m going to go home.”