Donald Trump took the stage in Chillicothe, Ohio, Wednesday to campaign for Republican Senate candidate Jon Husted and gubernatorial hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy, marking his third Ohio stop of the midterm election cycle. Hundreds of miles away, former President Barack Obama rallied Georgia Democrats on the same day, stumping for Senate candidate Jon Ossoff and gubernatorial nominee Keisha Lance Bottoms as both parties made their closing pitches before Election Day.
The dueling appearances underscore how both parties view this cycle as pivotal to control of Congress. According to NBC News, Trump took the stage in Chillicothe to stump for Husted and Ramaswamy, while Obama headed to Georgia the same day to rally alongside the Democratic candidates for Senate and governor. Trump's visit was his third Ohio campaign stop of the midterm cycle, as reported by The Columbus Dispatch. The race was also chronicled by the Associated Press.
Ohio's Ballot Carries Extra Weight This Year
Ohio's midterm ballot is unusually loaded, featuring a governor's race, several state executive offices, and a special U.S. Senate election to fill out the remainder of JD Vance's term, according to NBC4 Columbus. NBC News reported that recent polling shows both the Senate and governor's races in the state are close. NBC4's own account of that polling diverges slightly, describing most recent surveys as showing Democrat Sherrod Brown ahead of Husted, though within the margin of error — a discrepancy the two outlets did not reconcile.
Georgia's ballot carries similarly high stakes. Fox 5 Atlanta reports the state's contests include Ossoff facing Republican Mike Collins for Senate, and Bottoms facing Republican Rick Jackson for governor. NBC News described Ossoff as generally leading Collins in recent polling, while the governor's race between Bottoms and Jackson was characterized as close.
Early Voting Surges Past 1.7 Million in Georgia
Georgia had already banked 1,781,209 accepted ballots as of Oct. 26, equal to 23.7% of its 7.53 million active voters, per Fox 5 Atlanta. The outlet also noted that the first day of early voting drew 188,667 in-person ballots statewide, a 40% jump over the first day of the 2022 cycle. Nationally, more than 39 million Americans had cast ballots by Wednesday, according to a report from U.S. News & World Report, which noted that 45.9 million Americans voted early in the 2022 midterms for comparison.
Obama's trip to Georgia echoes a role he has played there before. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution noted that Obama campaigned in the state in 2022 for gubernatorial nominee Stacey Abrams and Sen. Raphael Warnock, a prior appearance that Georgia Democrats are hoping he can replicate in turnout terms.
National Mood Favors Democrats, Polling Shows
An NPR/PBS News/Marist poll of 1,289 registered voters, conducted Oct. 19-20, found Democrats holding a 10-point advantage among registered voters on the generic congressional ballot and an 8-point edge among likely voters, according to NPR. The same survey found just 38% of registered voters approving of Trump's job performance, with 61% disapproving. NPR's poll also identified Ohio as a state that could decide control of the Senate, with rural voters potentially tipping the balance.
Cost of living dominated voter concerns in that same poll, with a third of respondents reporting financial hardship over the past year and four in 10 saying their personal finances had gotten worse. The stakes for Senate control are considerable: this cycle features 35 Senate seats up for election, and Democrats would need to hold every seat they currently have while flipping four Republican-held seats to take the majority, according to the New York Times.
