Senate candidate Bernie Moreno campaigns as an outsider despite ties

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Bernie Moreno had a ready-made retort when a radio host in his native Colombia asked him why he would trade a successful professional and personal life in Ohio for the rigors of a job in the U.S. Senate.

“Remember that my brother, Luis Alberto, just left politics — and in politics there always has to be a Moreno,” he replied in Spanish during a 2021 interview. “Otherwise, what is happening in the world, right?”

The light-hearted response by Moreno, a Republican candidate for a U.S. Senate seat in Ohio, indicates his family’s deep political ties in both the U.S. and Colombia. Moreno’s father was a senior government official in Colombia, and his six siblings include an influential former political adviser and diplomat and a prominent Colombian businessman.

Those ties, combined with his family’s considerable wealth back home, form the backdrop for Moreno’s journey from buying a single car dealership in Cleveland to becoming a millionaire and then Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump in a key swing state.

“He comes from one of Colombia’s wealthy families, where wealth has been passed down through generations and where members hold high-ranking government positions,” said Philip Chicola, a retired U.S. diplomat who once worked closely with Moreno’s older brother, Luis Alberto Moreno.

Moreno has portrayed himself as a political outsider and immigrant whose family rose from humble beginnings in the U.S. to the American dream. In a statement, he dismissed questions about his portrayal of his origin story and the sacrifices his parents made as “shameful.” He also calls it disingenuous when he describes his Democratic rival, third-term Sen. Sherrod Brown, as someone who “grew up with a silver spoon,” referring to the incumbent’s status as the Yale-educated son and grandson of doctors. Brown’s campaign declined to comment.

Vicky Stockamore, Moreno’s older sister, said in a statement released by Moreno’s campaign that she remembers her family’s story exactly as her brother describes it.

“My parents had to make a huge sacrifice leaving their home country and risking a new, unknown life in a strange place,” she said. “My parents believed deeply that if you work hard, you will succeed, and that’s what the American dream means to me.”

Wealth and political connections are nothing new in the Senate, which includes 15 former governors, one former presidential candidate and at least 10 people with net worths of more than $30 million.

Moreno built his fortune as a luxury car dealer and blockchain entrepreneur. If elected, he would be among the eight richest U.S. senators, according to the latest data from the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, with an estimated net worth between $25.5 million and $105.7 million.

According to his 2022 Senate Financial Disclosure Statement (the latest available), Brown’s net worth is approximately $1 million.

Moreno’s business experience and wealth helped him beat Trump in this spring’s controversial GOP primary, which was rife with questions about a profile created from Moreno’s email account on an adult website — a profile that Moreno’s lawyer said was created by a former intern as a joke. Moreno has retained Trump’s support throughout the controversy and has landed a coveted speaking slot at the Republican National Convention earlier this month.

The Morenos started their family in the U.S., where Bernardo Sr. completed a surgical residency at the University of Pennsylvania in the 1950s. Their first three children were born in Philadelphia but raised in Bogota, where Bernardo was dean of the medical school, a chief spokesman for Colombian surgeons, and then the equivalent of the Colombian secretary of health.

Bernie, or Bernardo Jr., the youngest of seven children, was about five years old when the family moved to Florida. Before entering politics, Bernie Moreno described his mother as coming from “extraordinary privilege” and says she emigrated because she did not want her children to be raised in a “privileged way.” Bernie Moreno became a U.S. citizen at age 18.

“Our family came to the United States because our mother wanted her children to grow up here,” Stockamore said. “It would be easier for us to stay in Colombia, so at first my father wanted to stay, but my mother insisted. She knew that growing up in the United States would teach my siblings and me the value of hard work.”

After graduating from American universities, Luis Alberto Moreno, their oldest child, returned to Colombia and served in several cabinet positions. As conservative President Andres Pastrana’s ambassador to the U.S. from 1998, he helped win passage in Congress of the largest U.S. aid package in Latin America’s history. Among his legislative partners: then-Delaware Sen. Joe Biden, sponsor of the $1.6 billion drug policy known as Plan Colombia.

Another Moreno brother, Roberto, is co-founder and president of Amarilo Construction, one of Colombia’s largest social housing builders. Moreno’s cousin, Luis Andrade, headed Colombia’s national infrastructure agency before he was embroiled in a corruption scandal and returned to the United States.