WASHINGTON — Viral former reality TV star Mark Moran casually told the Daily Caller News Foundation he is dropping his independent run for Senate and wants to challenge a George Soros-funded prosecutor instead.
Moran told the DCNF more than one hour into an interview that he sees “no viable” path to victory for his longshot bid to unseat Democratic Virginia Sen. Mark Warner. Minutes earlier, the 34-year-old lawyer and former investment banker said he is considering an independent 2027 run against left-wing Democratic Fairfax County Commonwealth’s Attorney Steve Descano.
After Moran expressed interest in running against Descano, the DCNF asked him if he still plans to stay in the Senate race. In response, he broke the news of his exit.
“I will be removing myself from it. And I’ll give this the opportunity to make this the point, because I look at it as there is no viable way for me to win,” he said.
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“I know that [dropping out] will make a lot of people on the left very happy,” he added. “But also the thing I think that they’ve learned is that my mouth won’t shut up just because I’m not running for Senate.”
Beyond this, Moran doubted if federal office would be the best way to make a difference to his Northern Virginia community.
“Even if I were to be elected to Senate, what change am I going to do to the area that I live in now that I grew up in? How am I going to make that safer?” he asked.
“And once that hit me, that I won’t be able to — well, then I realized perhaps I was pursuing something different than I should have been pursuing,” Moran added. (RELATED: Democrat Senate Candidate Leaves Party To Put ‘Our Country First’)
He also said there are federal agencies looking into the alleged petition fraud he claimed happened during his prior attempt to qualify for the Senate ballot as a Democrat.
The deadline to collect ballot signatures to qualify for the state’s Democratic Senate primary was April 2, the day Moran announced his switch to run as an independent. The deadline to collect the required 10,000 ballot signatures to qualify for the general election ballot as an independent was Tuesday. Moran told the DCNF that he had collected 11,436 digital signatures for his independent Senate run.
Moran said during his interview that his decision on whether to actually enter the race against Descano will be ultimately be “dependent upon fundraising.” However, the independent still has a plan for what he would do if he manages to upset the Soros-linked incumbent.
Screenshot/YouTube/Steve Descano for Commonwealth’s Attorney
Moran told the DCNF that if elected to replace Descano he would launch a “100-day review of all the 80 people” under the Democrat. He also stated he plans to “fully evaluate all of the crime statistics” under the prosecutor’s tenure, which began in January 2020.
“We’d fire them if we deemed that they made bad prosecutorial decisions,” he said. “We would bring in new people, we would prosecute all the sex crimes, lock everyone up. Anyone who is committing any domestic violence, lock them up.”
Since 2019, Descano’s campaigns have received over $600,000 from a political action committee with ties to Soros. The prosecutor gave Ronnie Reel a plea deal in 2022 after he had admitted to sexually abusing a minor. In May, Reel was seen traveling with a missing 17-year-old girl. Earlier in May, the Department of Justice announced an investigation into Descano’s bargaining, charging and sentencing policies.
Fairfax County — among one of the wealthiest counties in the nation — is heavily Democratic. Former Vice President Kamala Harris carried it by about 35 points in the 2024 presidential election.
Moran also said during his interview with the DCNF that he plans to take a faculty position at Appalachian School of Law, a small private law school in Grundy, Virginia. He specified that his focus as a professor “will be on incorporating the power of narrative.”
A spokesperson for the law school told the DCNF that while the institution is considering bringing Moran on board in some capacity, they have not yet finalized what role he will play.
Moran first came to prominence in 2021 as a contestant on the HBOMax reality dating show “FBoy Island.” He was one of the “Nice Guys” competing against the “FBoys” and vying for the attention of the show’s female candidates.
In the weeks prior to his party switch, which was first reported by the DCNF, Moran publicly blasted Virginia Democrats over their gun control legislation and attempted lopsided gerrymander of the state’s House map.
“I try to boil everything down to principles of fairness, that when you look at the gerrymandered map, it is so morally offensive to anyone,” Moran, who was then a Democrat, told the DCNF in late March.
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