Obama Targets Trump Power in Midterm Campaign Push

Barack Obama urged Ohioans to vote against the Republican administration, condemning President Donald Trump’s foreign policies and the U.S.-Israel war on Iran while campaigning for Democratic candidates. “The current president chose to make a series of bad decisions,” Obama said at Saturday’s rally. “Most importantly, he decided to start an unnecessary war that nobody asked for.” The election is nine days away. The fight over political power is playing out at campaign rallies and the ballot box.

War, Power and the Ballot

Obama, a former United States president, said Trump’s second term had brought “cruelty and corruption.” He told the Ohio crowd: “After two years of chaos and cruelty and corruption and incompetence, the likes of which we have not seen in the modern era, you get a chance to say, ‘Enough is enough’.” His message: use the midterm vote against the Republican administration.

The U.S. midterm elections are scheduled for November 3, and they’ll help determine the balance of power in U.S. politics. Polls showed Democrats with a slight lead in both Ohio races, though close results were expected. Obama campaigned for Democratic candidates in Ohio and Michigan during the final days before the vote. Voters faced a choice between candidates in the existing political contest.

At the rally, Obama stood with Democratic gubernatorial candidate Amy Acton and Sherrod Brown, Ohio’s former Democratic senator, who planned to challenge incumbent Republican Senator Jon Husted. Brown’s planned challenge adds a contest for institutional power to the ballot alongside the governor’s race.

A Campaign Attack and a Family’s Account

Republican candidate Vivek Ramaswamy’s attack advertisement in the Ohio governor’s race featured Donna Arthur, Acton’s mother, disputing Acton’s account of a childhood marked by homelessness and sexual abuse by her stepfather. The advertisement urged Ohioans not to vote for Acton.

Acton said she hadn’t seen her mother since 1978. Her brother backed her account that her stepfather sexually abused her as a child. The stepfather died in 2004 and faced a rape charge. Those facts formed the backdrop to an election ad that put a family’s painful history before voters as a weapon in a campaign for public office.

Obama backed Acton, saying she had “spoken movingly about her painful childhood and all she's experienced: abuse, neglect and homelessness.” He condemned Ramaswamy’s advertisement: “In recent days, we've seen there is no line he will not cross, no low he will not sink to,” Obama said. “I don't know what's happened where the standards of behaviour are so low that somebody could run an ad like that.”

The Campaign Moves to Michigan

Later Saturday evening, Obama traveled to Michigan to defend Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed against critics he said were using El-Sayed’s name and Muslim faith against him. In Detroit, Obama said: “We have seen this movie before. I starred in it.” He added, “I've got a long-form birth certificate to prove it,” and said, “Abdul is as Michigan as it gets.”

Obama rejected those calling El-Sayed a “radical,” saying, “Abdul shares my values.” The rally cast the dispute as a contest over who gets to define a candidate—and whose identity becomes ammunition in an election.

Obama was due to headline a Democratic Party rally in Georgia the following week with Senator Jon Ossoff and gubernatorial candidate Keisha Lance Bottoms. Trump spoke in Georgia on Saturday and defended Ramaswamy’s advertisement. At the Ohio rally, Obama’s final appeal was for voters to reject the Republican administration: “Enough is enough.”