Brown and Acton are in neck-and-neck Ohio races
At an Ohio midterm campaign rally on Saturday, former President Barack Obama spent roughly 40 minutes criticizing President Trump and Republicans, returning to the campaign trail less than two weeks before Election Day. Obama appeared with Democratic gubernatorial candidate Amy Acton and Senate candidate Sherrod Brown. Both candidates were in neck-and-neck races, and Brown’s matchup with Republican incumbent Jon Husted could decide the balance of power in the Senate.
The appearance was notable because Obama had largely been circumspect in his criticism of Trump while in office. Obama cast Trump as responsible for high prices, attributing the higher price of oil to Trump’s decision to wage war in Iran. “This is the reason why the price of oil is up,” Obama said. “Nobody disputes that.”
Obama also lambasted Trump’s continuing plans to build a ballroom in the White House and his redecoration of the building. “There’s gold everywhere, what’s up with the gold?” Obama said. “He’s got the White House looking like Saddam Hussein opened a Cheesecake Factory.”
Trump responded earlier Saturday when reporters asked about criticism from Obama and Bill Clinton. He said the former presidents are “critical because we’ve beaten them.” “Obama was a lousy president,” Trump said. “Clinton was not bad, but he got caught up in a lot of scandals. Outside of the scandals, he would have been a good president,” he added.
Although Trump was not a candidate, he remained central to the 2026 midterm campaigns. Democrats had repeatedly invoked him, blaming him for high costs and policy missteps, while Trump had told supporters to “pretend I’m on the ballot” to mobilize Republican voters. Obama’s remarks echoed the party’s strongest attack lines: Democrats were attacking Republicans over high costs, tariffs installed by the Trump administration and the war in Iran, and they were also portraying Trump as focused on dealmaking for his family.
Obama focused on what he called Trump’s enrichment of himself, his family and his cronies. “Now, there is one thing he seems to focus on, in addition to home renovation,” Obama said. “And that’s how to enrich himself, and his family, and his cronies.”
In the closing weeks of the campaign, Democrats highlighted allegations of corruption and pointed to what they described as the extraordinary growth of Trump’s wealth since he took office, including $1.4 billion earned last year from crypto ventures. The party said it would investigate Trump’s efforts to get large companies to cut checks for projects such as the White House ballroom, his acceptance of a gifted luxury jet from Qatar and his pardon of Changpeng Zhao, founder of the crypto exchange Binance.
The White House said Trump was focused on rooting out fraud and made decisions in the best interest of Americans. Asked about corruption concerns earlier Saturday, Trump said Democrats were responsible for “the real corruption.”
The rally also capped a week of controversy in Ohio’s gubernatorial race. Earlier in the week, Acton’s Republican opponent, Vivek Ramaswamy, took responsibility for an attack advertisement in which Acton’s estranged mother called her a liar and unfit for office. Acton has said her mother’s husband sexually abused her and that she and her mother had been estranged since she was a child. Some Republicans, including Ohio’s current governor, criticized the advertisement as troubling.
Democrats are seeking to flip control of both congressional chambers. Brown’s race against Husted could decide the balance of power in the Senate, while Acton joined Obama in a neck-and-neck race for governor.