President Donald Trump campaigned Saturday in Vandalia, just outside Dayton, Ohio, to support Republican Sen. Jon Husted in a Senate race against former Sen. Sherrod Brown ahead of the Nov. 3 elections.
Husted was appointed to fill the Senate vacancy left by now-Vice President JD Vance and is running to win the seat outright, while Brown is attempting to return after losing to Republican Bernie Moreno two years ago. Trump, who said he would undertake a 32-day blitz that had already taken him to Texas, Oklahoma and Alabama, told reporters as he left the White House that Brown had been thrown out of the Senate before.
Sen. Tim Scott, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, told reporters the Ohio contest is among 10 battleground races within striking distance and described it as a dead-even race after a gap of just a few points between the candidates.
The rally came as voters in the Dayton area face high living costs and gas prices the article links to Trump’s war on Iran, and days after nearly 1,400 people were laid off from a truck factory in nearby Springfield. Brown and allied groups have attacked Husted for supporting data centers when he was lieutenant governor, an issue tied to electricity prices and farmland concerns, while a Husted-backed bill to have utility regulators charge large power users more was blocked by nearly all Democrats. In the governor’s race, Republican Vivek Ramaswamy faces Democrat Dr. Amy Acton, despite Ramaswamy’s fundraising lead and more than $12 million in advertising.