His Senate Campaign is Rooted in an Immigrant’s Origin Story. Discover More.

TL/DR –

Bernie Moreno, a Republican running for the Senate in Ohio, is portraying himself as an immigrant who overcome financial hardship to become successful. However, his key narrative, that his family arrived from Colombia with nothing and built a new life from scratch, is contradicted by his family’s wealthy and politically connected history in Bogota. While Moreno turned a struggling business into a successful venture, his family background includes a brother who served as Bogota’s ambassador to the U.S. and another who founded a construction empire, and his parents were educated in the U.S. before moving to Florida, where they lived in comfortable circumstances.

Immigrant Ohio Senate Candidate’s Story Puts A Different Spin On His Privileged Background

Ohio Senate candidate Bernie Moreno is running as an immigrant who found success in America, leveraging a struggling business and becoming a millionaire. As an Ohio Republican under the populist banner of Donald Trump, Moreno presents himself as a “car guy from Cleveland”, emphasising his humble beginnings when his immigrant family started over in the US. “We came here with absolutely nothing — we came here legally — but we came here, nine of us in a two-bedroom apartment,” he stated in 2023.

However, Moreno’s narrative leaves out significant details about his affluent background and connections in his native Colombia. Born to a wealthy and politically powerful family in Bogotá, Moreno was one of few in his family who made the US their permanent home, with close relatives maintaining ties in their native country and even holding prestigious roles such as Bogotá’s ambassador to the United States.

In a state hit hard by economic globalization and the decline of manufacturing, Moreno’s story of hard work and entrepreneurship, as exemplified by his investment in a struggling Mercedes-Benz dealership, resonates with Ohio’s working class. As a first-time political candidate, Moreno’s story bolsters the GOP’s appeal to Latino voters and first-generation immigrants aiming for a better life.

Yet, Moreno’s family’s socio-economic status in Colombia was far from the typical immigrant story. His brother Roberto Moreno is the president of Amarilo Holdings, a major construction conglomerate in Bogotá. Another sibling, after serving as Colombia’s ambassador to the United States, was elected president of the Inter-American Development Bank with the support of George W. Bush’s administration.

Despite his wealthy upbringing, Moreno describes his life in America starting from a two-bedroom apartment in Florida bought with a mortgage worth more than $300,000 in today’s dollars. Although the family experienced some financial struggle initially, Moreno’s mother’s real estate business helped them move into a four-bedroom house in Pompano Beach within two months. Furthermore, his father, Dr. Moreno, was able to re-establish his medical practice in late 1973.

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