President Trump will hold a midterm rally in Chillicothe on Oct. 28, his third trip to Ohio this month as Republicans fight to hold key statewide races.
The Republican National Committee announced Wednesday that President Trump will campaign in Chillicothe, Ohio, on Oct. 28, a stop framed as a late push for GOP candidates before Election Day.
Chillicothe sits roughly 45 miles south of Columbus. The visit is Trump’s third to the Buckeye State this month and underscores how much national Republicans are investing in Ohio’s remaining races.
Two of those contests are locked in toss-up fights: Sen. Jon Husted (R-Ohio) against former Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), and Republican gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy against Democrat Amy Acton.
Trump has already worked to lift Husted. At a campaign rally Tuesday in Greenville, N.C., the president praised the Ohio senator in blunt physical terms.
Trump told the crowd:
"I looked at his a**, and then I looked at his legs, and my, I said, 'His a** is like, it’s like a pile of muscle.' Then I looked at his legs, and I said, 'Man, his feet are big,'"
He kept going:
"Then I looked at his shoulders, and I tapped him on the shoulder, and it actually hurt my hand. It was like a piece of steel. I said, 'This guy’s a monster.'"
Colorful or not, the point was clear. Trump wants Husted held in a race the article describes as a toss-up against Brown, a familiar Democratic brand in Ohio.
The governor’s contest has drawn national attention for a different reason. Ramaswamy is in a toss-up race with Acton. This week, Ramaswamy confirmed to reporters that his campaign was behind an advertisement featuring Acton’s estranged biological mother.
The ad, as described in the reporting, insinuated that Acton has mental health issues. It triggered bipartisan backlash.
Acton has said she was a victim of sexual assault and neglect in childhood and has accused her stepfather of molesting her. She has been estranged from her mother. Court documents, according to the same reporting, show the stepfather was charged with sexually abusing Acton when she was 12 years old.
That history is now tangled up in a statewide campaign. Voters are left to judge both the ad’s tactics and the larger choice for who runs Ohio.
Vice President Vance, an Ohioan who previously represented the state in the Senate, has made multiple recent stops there. On Wednesday he came to Ramaswamy’s defense while campaigning in the state.
Before heading to a Ramaswamy rally, Vance spoke at an antifraud task force press conference in Cincinnati and addressed Republican critics of the ad.
Vance said:
"I have to admit that I’m a little bit disgusted when I see Republicans across the country who are whining more about that advertisement than they are about what the congressional Democrats and other Democrats want to do to the United States of America,"
His argument was straightforward. Focus on policy stakes, not intra-party fretting over one spot.
Trump’s October schedule already includes two earlier Ohio visits, with Chillicothe set as the third. The RNC’s announcement cast the Oct. 28 rally as a last-minute bid to firm up support for Republican candidates across the state.
Ohio is not a symbolic stop. It has a Senate seat in a toss-up, a governor’s race in a toss-up, and a Republican ticket that wants the president on the ground before voters cast final ballots.
Vance’s Ohio swing, the Ramaswamy rally circuit, and Trump’s repeated returns all point the same direction. National Republicans treat these races as worth the travel and the headlines.
Exact venue and start time for the Chillicothe event were not listed in the announcement coverage. The date and city are set. The political math is obvious.
When a president makes a third trip to the same state in a single month, he is not sightseeing. He is trying to win.
