Exclusive — Sen. Bernie Moreno on Midterms: ‘Not Showing Up Is a Vote for the Socialists, for the Radicals, for the Anti-America Haters’

If Republican voters do not show up for the 2026 midterm elections, they are essentially casting a vote for radical socialists who hate America, Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-OH) told Breitbart News on Thursday. 

Moreno talked about the political landscape ahead of Election Day on November 3 and the path forward for GOP victory during a Breitbart News Fight Club Roundtable hosted by Breitbart News Editor-in-Chief Alex Marlow and Washington Bureau Chief Matthew Boyle.

Alex Marlow, Senator Bernie Moreno, Matthew Boyle — Breitbart Fight Club Roundtable

“Let’s start with how I’ve been framing up this election cycle. You’re out of cycle right now, but you obviously have a vested interest. I think your work will be a lot more fun if Republicans do well in November, and we are voting now. Election Day is today in a lot of ways,” Marlow said to Moreno.

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“I feel like the way to frame it up is, I feel like things in this country are not going that badly, and yet people are walking around as if there’s some sort of doom loop going on, and we’re all a part of it. And it’s very strange to me because we post these economic numbers that are very strong. It seems like the Iran War — whereas the media on both sides would have you believe it’s some sort of a quagmire — it doesn’t seem like that at all from when you’re reading between the lines. But the sentiment seems very — people are down,” he continued. “And so how do you win in this environment? Where do you think we are? And how do you win?” 

Moreno acknowledged that cost-of-living and food prices are still crushing many Americans and said the Iran War, while disappointing, is out of necessity to keep a hostile nation from obtaining nuclear weapons.

“Well, let’s talk about first where we are. And I think it’s legitimate for people to think that prices have gone up too much, and that they can’t get ahead because in the last six years, things are about a third more expensive. So, something that used to cost $10 costs $13. Something used to cost $100 costs $130. So, they just don’t feel like they can get ahead. And that feeling is 100 percent legitimate,” Moreno replied. “Here’s the challenge though: 80 percent of that inflation happened during Biden.” 

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“Now, of course, we would’ve preferred not to have had to go into Iran, but we had no choice. They were going to build a nuclear weapon. They were going to use a nuclear weapon. And believe me, gas prices would be the last thing we’d be talking about. So, gas prices are too high right now. No question about that,” he continued. “But they will collapse the second this conflict in Iran is over. It’s going to be over very, very quickly. This is the opposite of a forever conflict.”

Despite many Republican voters being discouraged, Moreno contended that “you never elect Democrats if you want gas prices to go down.” 

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“Gas prices are up because that’s what they want as a matter of policy. You don’t elect Democrats if you want a secure border. We saw that under Biden. You don’t elect Democrats if you want crime to go down. We’ve gotten prescription drugs down to the lowest price since 1963. We’ve cut the federal workforce by almost 400,000 employees. That’s a permanent tax cut on Americans. We got the best, most aggressive tax cuts we could with Democrats obstructing everywhere they could, and it was a historic tax cut. We got trillions of dollars of investment coming into the United States,” he said. 

“So, the answer to the last part of your question, ‘how do we win?’ Every single patriotic American — the people who love this country — do exactly on November 3 or before what you did in November of 2024: show up and vote. You not showing up is a vote for the socialists, for the radicals, for the anti-America haters. That’s how we win, Alex: everybody who showed up in ’24 shows up in ’26,” he said. 

To attend the next Breitbart Fight Club roundtable event—where you can interact LIVE with the nation’s top leaders and ask them YOUR questions — join the Breitbart Fight Club at the “Middleweight” membership level, billed annually.

Katherine Hamilton is a political reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow her on X @thekat_hamilton.