Trump heads to Ohio as Marist poll shows 56% disapproval in GOP stronghold

Husted trails Brown, Ramaswamy trails Acton in Ohio’s two top races

President Donald Trump is scheduled to rally in Montgomery County, Ohio on Saturday for two Republicans trailing in the state’s top races, as a Marist poll conducted late last month found 56% of registered Ohio voters disapprove of the job Trump is doing as president. The visit will back incumbent Republican Senator Jon Husted, who is polling behind Democratic challenger Sherrod Brown, and Vivek Ramaswamy, the Republican candidate for governor, who is also trailing his Democratic opponent, former Ohio Department of Health Director Amy Acton.

Ohio has been solidly Republican at the presidential level for more than a decade — Trump won the state in 2016, 2020, and 2024, and the state has not voted for a Democratic president since Barack Obama in 2012. The Republican Party holds a supermajority in the state legislature, and Ohio has elected Republican governors in six of the past seven elections. Montgomery County, a mix of urban, suburban and rural communities, has been a swing county for decades; Trump lost it by just 1,201 votes in 2024, one of only seven of the state’s 88 counties that went for Kamala Harris.

The Marist poll, of nearly 1,300 registered Ohio voters, found broad dissatisfaction with the president. In two primaries held earlier this year, Republican turnout in Montgomery County was two-thirds that of Democrats, according to the Guardian’s reporting. In May’s Republican gubernatorial primary, turnout was down 362,000 votes — 33% — compared with the previous primary in 2022.

Kelly Savage-Radich, a mother of three in a Dayton suburb who voted for Trump in 2016 and 2020, told the Guardian she was facing the prospect of selling one of her family’s vehicles because of high gas prices and that her grocery bill had risen by about $100 a week. “He wants his name on everything,” she said. “I’m sorry, but I don’t give a shit whose name is on the Kennedy Center.” She also brought up the killing of Renee Good in Minneapolis earlier this year. “The shooting of an American citizen dead in the street, and no one was held accountable?” she said. “I have two daughters, and I’m trying to teach them all the freedoms this country has, but it feels like our freedoms are being taken,” she said. “For people that always claim, ‘Don’t tread on me,’ they sure have no problem now.”

A second Dayton resident, who declined to give her name outside a tattoo parlor in the city’s Old North district, a working-class area north of downtown Dayton, said simply: “Trump? I think he’s a disaster.” Bill, a former nurse and Republican voter who asked to be identified only by his first name, was caring for his invalid mother on the porch of his home. He disagreed with the unnamed woman and said the wider focus on rising gas prices was misplaced. “It’s always been crazy high, and people will buy a whole lot of gas at $2.99 but act like it’s out of control when it’s $3,” he said, adding that he had not decided whether to vote in the midterms. “It seems like everybody is making more money, even with the most menial jobs,” he said.

Montgomery County Republican Party chair Phil Plummer, who also serves in the Ohio House of Representatives, said Republicans were in a fight. “You know, it’s been slower [than in previous election cycles], but it’s picking up. Honestly, I haven’t seen much energy on either side, but we’re getting more interest, people are getting engaged,” he said. Plummer said candidates knocking on doors were hearing about affordability but told voters “we didn’t create that, the Democrats did, and it’s hard to fix it in two years.” Plummer said that during the Biden administration too much money was printed in the form of hundreds of billions of dollars in federal tax breaks and investment spending, which has fueled higher costs today. The Guardian reported that Democrats say the Biden-era spending surge was aimed at combating the pandemic-era recession and that the Trump administration’s war on Iran has cost Americans more than $44 billion. Plummer conceded that the war on Iran “hasn’t helped as far as oil prices” but said Ohio had been deemed the number one state to do business in the nation. “We’re moving the ball in Ohio; we’ve lowered property tax and cut income tax,” he said. “So we’re doing the best we can.”

Independents are set to play a major role in deciding Ohio’s next governor and the senate race between Husted and Brown, the Guardian reported. Nearly 38% of Ohio voters, or 2.9 million people, are independents, according to the Independent Voter Project. Sandeep Dixit, running as an independent candidate for U.S. House of Representatives in northeastern Ohio’s 13th district, has knocked on hundreds of doors and met thousands of Ohioans on the campaign trail, according to the Guardian. He said the biggest issue voters were talking about was the hate-filled language coming from the political class. “People understand that if we continue with extreme positions the country’s going to get torn apart,” he said. “That’s the number one issue.” Dixit, who would not say for which parties he had voted in the past, said he believed Ohio Republicans had done well on the rule of law. However, “when it comes to being empathetic to people and understanding what people need, there is a complete extreme ideology” among Republicans, he said.

Savage-Radich was blunt about her view of the Republican ticket. “I would never vote for Ramaswamy, I don’t believe anything he says – I don’t believe anything any Republican says right now because every time I fact-check something, they’re lying,” she said. She also questioned the current foreign policy posture. “And now we’re like buddies with China? It’s all crazy. I thought Republicans were the party that was so against China?” she said. Defending Acton against Republican attacks over her pandemic-era restrictions, Savage-Radich noted that Acton had been working as the director of the Ohio department of health under a Republican governor. “She didn’t do anything that Mike DeWine didn’t have her do, and that’s a Republican governor,” she said. Savage-Radich said she now plans to vote Democratic across the ballot.

The Guardian also reported that Representative Max Miller, another Ohio Republican who until domestic and child abuse allegations against him emerged last summer enjoyed close ties with Trump, faces stiff opposition to retain his congressional seat from a union ironworker. (Miller has denied all of the allegations, and has not faced criminal charges. The House ethics committee is investigating the allegations.)