Trump in Ohio and Obama in Georgia make closing stretch appeals to
midterm voters in pivotal states
[October 29, 2026]
By WILL WEISSERT, JOSH BOAK and BILL BARROW
CHILLICOTHE, Ohio (AP) — Georgia Democrats rallied with former President
Barack Obama Wednesday night, at the same time President Donald Trump
was in Ohio attempting to energize his base, as both parties began
crystallizing their closing messages ahead of next week's midterm
elections.
Trump has been on a weekslong sprint around the country, doing 20-plus
rallies this month alone while packing upcoming days with more travel.
But as Americans confront record fuel prices, rising costs and an
unpopular war in Iran, the president has been keeping his focus on
states that he won handily two years ago.
“If you can get out to vote,” Trump told a raucous crowd in Chillicothe,
south of Columbus, Ohio’s capital, “we’re going to have a tremendous
victory.”
The last Democratic president to serve two terms, Obama is increasingly
campaigning for his party and gleefully acting as a foil to Trump —
including criticizing the Republican for spending too much time leading
White House renovations and for becoming wealthier while in office.
He said Trump is “spending time supergluing gold medallions to the
mantel in the Oval Office.”
Obama appeared in suburban Atlanta with that city's former mayor, Keisha
Lance Bottoms, who could be the first Black woman elected governor in
the United States, as well as Sen. Jon Ossoff, running for reelection
and considered a potential future presidential candidate.
“Everywhere you go, it feels like change is in the air,” the former
president said.
Trump says Alaska Democrat should be prosecuted
Even as he stages so many rallies, Trump also already turned to the
courts to shape the midterms, directing his Department of Justice to
file a lawsuit last week preemptively contesting the outcome of Alaska’s
Senate race should Democratic challenger Mary Peltola win it.
That’s due to the presence of a second candidate with the same name as
Republican incumbent Sen. Dan Sullivan.
Speaking to reporters as he boarded Air Force One to fly to Ohio, Trump
called on Peltola to drop out of the race and warned she could face
prosecution.
His comments followed a New York Times report that Peltola’s campaign
was involved in an effort to recruit the second Dan Sullivan, which
Trump called “voter fraud at the highest level,” adding: “It turned out
it was a scheme by the Democrats. That’s what they do best: they cheat.”
Peltola’s campaign said in a statement that it “has no involvement with
either Sullivan campaign.”
Accusations of antisemitism hang over Michigan Senate contest
Another closely watched Senate race pits Democrat Abdul El-Sayed against
Republican Mike Rogers. Trump has intensified his anti-Muslim rhetoric
against El-Sayed, who on Wednesday told a crowd at an event in
Wyandotte, outside Detroit: “They want to point to me and my name.
They’re doing this because they’re trying to distract us.”
“Michiganders are big-hearted. We’re open-minded. We don’t care as much
how you pray; rather, we care what you pray for,” El-Sayed said.
Republicans have argued El-Sayed is antisemitic, which he denies.
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who also is frequently mentioned as a 2028
presidential candidate, campaigned with Rogers in Birmingham, Michigan,
at an event hosted by the Republican Jewish Coalition. Cruz said that
antisemitism is “a poison that is ripping the country apart” and that
the Democratic Party was being taken over by “self-proclaimed communists
and Islamists.”
The event featured several voters who described themselves as lifelong
Democrats voting Republican for the first time because of El-Sayed’s
comments last year after a man attacked a synagogue in a Detroit suburb.
El-Sayed tied the attack to Israel’s actions in the Middle East, saying
at the time that “hurt people hurt people.” He later apologized for the
statement.
The issue was a focal point in the Democratic primary between El-Sayed
and Rep. Haley Stevens, whom he narrowly defeated. Stevens has endorsed
her former rival, but her fiance Jason Turkish told The Detroit News on
Wednesday that he plans to back Rogers because he believes El-Sayed is
an antisemite.
Later, Stevens appeared on CNN and said of Turkish’s comments, “Like a
households across America, we’re a household divided.”
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President Donald Trump listens as Republican gubernatorial candidate
Vivek Ramaswamy speaks at a campaign rally at the Shoemaker Center
at Ohio University Chillicothe in Chillicothe, Ohio, Wednesday, Oct.
28, 2026. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
“I still very much want our Democratic nominee — his name is Abdul —
to win this race,” Stevens said.
But she also warned that El-Sayed is at risk of losing many of the
Black and Jewish voters who backed her in the primary. She urged him
to disavow an ad by Rebellion PAC, an independent left-wing group,
that linked U.S. support for Israel with high grocery prices.
El-Sayed said, “I’m committed to the safety of the Jewish community
like I’m committed to safety of all communities," and he distanced
himself from the ad without addressing its substance, saying it “has
nothing to do with our campaign” and it’s “not what I want to be
talking about right now."
“He can do the right thing,” Stevens told CNN. “He can disavow these
ads and he can reassure these undecided voters who are still left.”
The president sticks mostly to red states in pre-midterm blitz
Trump's stops in the closing stretch of the campaign reflect
Republicans' defensive posture even as the party's finances — and
the president's signature super PAC, MAGA Inc. — have helped sustain
candidates.
Trump visited Mississippi on Monday and made another stop in a
series of trips to Texas on Tuesday. He plans to be in South
Carolina, Florida, Kansas and Iowa in the coming days.
Going to so many deeply red states hasn't always gone smoothly.
Early in Wednesday's speech, Trump was interrupted by a protester
shouting about the late, disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein and
made some rare remarks on his onetime friend, saying he'd expelled
Epstein from his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida decades ago.
“That was a great thing I did, I must tell you,” Trump said, adding,
“I threw Jeffrey Epstein the hell out of Mar-a-Lago.” The president
then pivoted immediately into praising Ohio Sen. Jon Husted’s
physique.
Trump has been lavishly praising Republicans' physical appearances
on the trail, often diverting into tangents about Husted — who
played football in college — no matter where he's campaigning.
Husted is being challenged by former Ohio Democratic Sen. Sherrod
Brown.
Trump also chided his predecessor, slamming Obama for suggesting
Trump has spent too much time renovating the White House. Trump said
Obama “doesn't understand cleanliness" and things like broken stone
exteriors and sidewalks.
“It's more beautiful than it's ever looked," Trump said of the White
House.
Obama says 'these are not serious people’
Obama faced backlash for saying last weekend that Trump’s gilded
flourishes to the White House looked like “Saddam Hussein opened a
Cheesecake Factory,” and he responded to the controversy Wednesday
in Georgia.
“These are not serious people. They don’t have solutions to actual
problems,” Obama said of Trump and top Republicans. He also noted,
“I lived at Chuck E. Cheese and California Pizza Kitchen and the
Cheesecake Factory — that was my jam for about a decade.”
At the same rally, Ossoff focused on Trump increasingly using his
office as a profit source for his family business, though the White
House has said Trump has ceded control to his sons.
“In Washington and at Mar-a-Lago, it’s a spectacle of grift
unprecedented in American history,” he said.
“Never before has so little effort been made to cover up so much
corruption,” Ossoff added.
___ Weissert reported from Washington. Barrow reported from Morrow,
Georgia. Associated Press writers Jacqueline GaNun in Wyandotte,
Michigan, Mike Catalini in Morrisville, Pennsylvania, Jonathan J.
Cooper in Phoenix, Mike Householder in Birmingham, Michigan and
Michelle L. Price in Washington contributed to this report.
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