Former President Barack Obama in a campaign rally in Cleveland Saturday said hotly contested races in Ohio provide Democrats a direct avenue to try to halt the agenda of President Donald Trump over the next two years.
Obama took the stage at Public Auditorium in Downtown Cleveland before a crowd of thousands. He took take aim at Trump and allies Vivek Ramaswamy, the Republican candidate for Ohio governor, and Jon Husted, one of Ohio's Republican U.S. Senators who's running to hold onto his seat.
Obama painted Trump and Ramaswamy and Husted as politicians motivated by self-interest and backed by corporate interests.
"He's paved over the Rose Garden. Put a helicopter pad on the South Lawn, and there's gold everywhere. What's up with the gold? Everything, more gold, he's got the White House looking like Saddam Hussein opened a Cheesecake Factory," Obama said.
Obama's visit comes as the polls have tightened significantly in Ohio, putting Brown and Acton slightly ahead of their opponents. Ohio, once considered a "swing state" that went for Obama in the 2012 national presidential election, has become decidedly less purple since Trump's first run for office in 2016.
Acton responded to a recent Ramaswamy attack ad featuring Acton’s estranged mother that has prompted bipartisan condemnation. It features Acton's mother who calls her a "liar." Acton accused her stepfather of sexual abuse as a child. He fled the state after being indicted, but her mother stuck by him, Acton's campaign has said.
"My opponent has chosen to exploit intentionally my childhood to save his struggling campaign, but it's not going to work. It's not going to work because compassion and decency still matter. These experiences drove me to become a doctor and to spend my career in public service fighting to make sure that every kid gets a fair shot."
Ramaswamy, Trump and Vice President JD Vance have all defended the ad. Ramaswamy has said the ad was about Acton “lying” in her political campaign, and not about “sexual abuse.”
Brown hammered Husted for his connections to the FirstEnergy corruption scandal. Husted was appointed to the U.S. Senate in 2025 to take the seat held by Vance after he became vice president. Brown was a U.S. Senator in Ohio from 2007 to 2025.
More broadly, Obama, Acton, Brown and other Democrats who spoke at the rally argued Republicans have done little to meaningfully drive down rising costs. In Trump's case, Obama said, he's actively caused costs of oil to spike with the war in Iran. He said the midterms could be an antidote.
"We're not stuck with a spineless Congress and Republican governors who are enabling lawlessness and carelessness and cruelty and indifference for working people ... we're not stuck with that. We're not stuck with folks who are enabling policies that take more and more out of your paycheck and cut your health care and drive up prices," Obama said. "This election is our last, best chance to at least rein in some of the foolishness of this administration."
After the rally, attendee Courtney Warren, a graduate student at the University of Akron, said she hopes Obama's visit will boost the morale of Ohio's Democrats and increase voter turnout.
"I feel like the energy was super electric, I feel like people are energized more than ever," she said.
Obama has a rally planned for Democratic candidates in Michigan Saturday night.
