Vance heads to North Carolina where Republicans doubt a Senate hold
President Donald Trump returns to Ohio on Wednesday for the third time in a month, with former President Barack Obama set to rally Democrats in Georgia, as both campaigns enter the final week before the Nov. 3 midterms. Vice President JD Vance is scheduled for North Carolina, where Republicans have been pessimistic about retaining a Senate seat.
With less than a week until Election Day, Trump is keeping his focus on states that he won handily two years ago as Americans confront record fuel prices, rising costs and an unpopular war in Iran.
Trump’s stops in the closing stretch reflect a defensive posture by a Republican Party whose finances, along with the president’s signature super PAC, MAGA Inc., have helped sustain candidates. He visited Mississippi on Monday and Texas on Tuesday, and plans stops in South Carolina, Florida, Kansas and Iowa in the coming days.
In North Carolina, where Republicans have been pessimistic about retaining a Senate seat, Vance is scheduled to appear. Republican candidate Michael Whatley, a former national party chair, faces Democrat Roy Cooper, a former governor, in the race to succeed retiring Republican Sen. Thom Tillis.
In Ohio, the Republican ticket includes wealthy biotech executive Vivek Ramaswamy for governor and Sen. Jon Husted, who hopes to fulfill the remainder of Vance’s term. Former Sen. Sherrod Brown is the Democratic nominee.
Obama, the last Democratic president to serve two terms, is increasingly campaigning for his party, acting as a foil to Trump. In Michigan recently, Obama criticized the Republican over his White House renovations and for becoming wealthier while in office. His Georgia appearance is planned with former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, who is seeking to become the first Black woman elected governor in the United States, and Sen. Jon Ossoff, who is running for reelection and is considered a potential future presidential candidate.
Husted, who played football in college, has been the recipient of Trump’s lavish praise for Republican candidates’ physical appearance, and the president often diverts into tangents about the senator’s physique no matter where he is campaigning.
Ramaswamy faces former public health official Amy Acton, and his campaign has created a late-season controversy over an ad in which Amy Acton’s mother, Donna Arthur, called her daughter “a liar” who “needs help” due to “a serious problem” being honest about her past.
Arthur has not seen her daughter in nearly 50 years and lost custody of her children after her husband, the children’s stepfather, was indicted for raping Acton when she was 12. Acton, Ohio’s former state health director, says she has not seen her mother since 1978.
Trump backed the ad, but other Republicans, including Husted, have distanced themselves from it.