A Brief Explanation of the “Adult Friend Finder” Story That Is Rocking the Ohio Senate Race

Things have gotten weird and wild in Ohio’s Republican Senate primary with the publication of an Associated Press story about one candidate’s connection to the Adult Friend Finder website landing just days before voting starts. It’s a big deal given that this primary will decide which Republican will face incumbent Democrat Sen. Sherrod Brown in what’s expected to be a close race that could—like all the close Senate races this year—determine control of the chamber. Let’s unpack things.

Who’s running for Senate in Ohio and why are they significant?

The leading candidates in the race, in order of their polling averages, are Bernie Moreno, Matt Dolan, and Frank LaRose.

Moreno, a Colombian immigrant, has been endorsed by Donald Trump; he made his name as the owner of a number of car dealerships and is an “evangelist for crypto technology,” which is certainly a suggestive combination of interests. He also ran for Senate as a MAGA right-winger in 2022, but dropped out of the race before voting began, a move that helped clear the way for current Sen. J.D. Vance’s victory.

Matt Dolan’s family owns the Cleveland Guardians baseball team, and he is an old-guard Republican who also ran for Senate in 2022, suffering during that campaign from his unwillingness to claim the 2020 election was stolen.

Frank LaRose is a run-of-the-mill, climbing-the-ladder party guy who serves as Ohio’s secretary of state. He is also a self-proclaimed Trump supporter.

The three are running for the chance to unseat Brown, a pro-labor populist who won reelection in 2018 by 7 points but is threatened by the increasing migration of the state’s white non-college-educated voters to the Republican Party.

How far ahead is Moreno?

Not that far ahead: The FiveThirtyEight average only has him leading Dolan 27–21, and an Emerson College survey conducted from March 7–10 actually found Dolan leading Moreno, albeit by only 3 points in a poll with a “credibility interval” of 2.6 percent. The same poll found that 32 percent of Republican voters are undecided.

What you’re saying is that this race is anyone’s to win—and ripe to be upended, disrupted, and thrown into turmoil by an “October Surprise”–style scandal.

You bet. And that disruption arrived on Thursday night with the publication of an Associated Press story titled “Trump-Backed Senate Candidate Faces GOP Worries That He Could Be Linked to Adult Website Profile.”

Wow, the words store just called and said the AP bought out their entire supply of passive constructions! What’s up with that?

What the story reports is that “someone with access to Moreno’s email account” created a “profile seeking ‘Men for 1-on-1 sex’ on a casual sexual encounters website called Adult Friend Finder” in 2008. The profile said its creator was interested in “young guys to have fun with while traveling.” This information, the AP says, became public via a data breach.

In addition to wanting to be very careful about not stating as a fact that Moreno himself signed up for the account, the AP is likely wrestling with the reality that none of what is described is against the law or even necessarily something that all of its readers would consider immoral—hence the framing of the piece as being about “GOP worries” rather than Moreno’s behavior itself.

On the other hand, you could argue that Moreno’s positions on LGBTQ+ issues make his personal life an acceptable subject of scrutiny. As the wire service notes, he has “accused advocates for LGBTQ rights of advancing a ‘radical’ agenda of ‘indoctrination’ ” and is endorsed by a “value voters” group that opposes the right to same-sex marriage. His campaign has also attacked LaRose for having once supported a bill that would have banned discrimination on the basis of gender identity and sexual orientation.

What does Moreno say?

Moreno, through an attorney, said the Adult Friend Finder account was created as a “prank” on him by a former intern and furnished the AP with a statement to that effect, attributed to the former intern in question. Politico also reports that Moreno’s campaign has spread word among Republicans that “the email address associated with the Adult Friend Finder account was never used to confirm it.”

The AP notes, however, that the Friend Finder account “was set up for use in a part of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, where property records show Moreno’s parents owned a home at the time” and that its username refers to the month and year of Moreno’s birth. Politico says Moreno’s explanation is “not landing well in some GOP circles,” and reporter Josh Kraushaar says the same.

Trump is nonetheless still scheduled to hold a rally in Dayton, Ohio, on Saturday to support Moreno. And, if you ask us, Moreno is still probably going to win the primary. Ohio likes its MAGA guys!

Speaking of which, didn’t the last Ohio Senate primary also involve some kind of sex thing?

You bet! As we wrote at the time, Trump “was convinced to back [J.D.] Vance in part because of a phone call in which Fox News host Tucker Carlson initiated a conversation about a rumor that Mandel’s biggest outside supporter—the president of the Club for Growth organization—has a weird penis.” You can read more about the weird-penis allegations in Rolling Stone.

Thanks—that’s a subject I’d love to hear more about!

Our pleasure! Have a nice weekend.