President Donald Trump brought his closing-week midterm blitz to Chillicothe, Ohio, on Wednesday evening, October 28, using a rally at the Shoemaker Center on the Ohio University Chillicothe campus to defend gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, praise Senator Jon Husted and press voters to back a photo-ID ballot measure, just six days before the November 3 election. The Trump Chillicothe rally was the president's third Ohio campaign stop of the midterm cycle, and it put the state's two fiercely contested statewide races, for the U.S. Senate and for governor, at the centre of the final week of campaigning.
Trump landed at Rickenbacker International Airport near Columbus at around 6:05 p.m. and travelled to Chillicothe, where the rally programme had begun at 5:30 p.m. He took the stage at about 7:35 p.m. to a packed hall, with at least two protesters removed after they began shouting shortly after he started speaking. Outside, about a dozen protesters had gathered near the entrance, while supporters who had travelled from hours away lined up to get in, some saying it was their first chance to see a president in person.
The evening unfolded as a full Ohio Republican showcase before Trump spoke. Ohio Treasurer Robert Sprague, who is running for secretary of state, opened the voting theme by arguing that photo ID should be required at the ballot box. "If you have to show photo ID to buy a beer in the state of Ohio, I think that you should have to show a photo ID to be able to vote in the great state of Ohio," Sprague said, promoting Issue 3, which would enshrine the current photo-ID requirement in the Ohio Constitution.
Jay Edwards, the Republican candidate for state treasurer, told the crowd that people in Appalachian Ohio believe in God, guns and removing people who are in the country illegally, drawing a chant of "deport" from the audience. He said he wanted to send Brown to "permanent retirement" in six days, joking that "Sherrod Brown is like a cat that showed up on your porch in 1974, and they just won't go away."
Husted then took the stage and framed the Senate race as a verdict on Brown's long career. "He's been in office for over 50 years. Can you name a single thing that he's done to make their life better?" Husted asked. "The closest anybody came to giving me a good answer is they said 'Yes, he lost two years ago to Bernie Moreno, and that made my life better.'" Husted, whom Governor Mike DeWine appointed to serve the remainder of Vice President JD Vance's Senate term, also advocated prohibiting undocumented immigrants from obtaining driver's licenses, asking: "Why do people like Sherrod Brown care more about people who are illegally in this country than he cares about you?" He described the final days of the campaign as a football slugfest, asking the crowd, "Are you going to break?" The crowd answered: "No."
Ramaswamy followed with a pitch built on ending sanctuary cities and slashing property taxes. "Put that money in your pocket where it belongs," he said, having proposed cutting property taxes back to levels at the end of the pandemic. He attacked Acton over her handling of the COVID-19 pandemic as the state's health director, including school and workplace closures, although DeWine has said those decisions were his. "I am running against a woman who has already shown you who she is and what she's made of," Ramaswamy said. "We say 'absolutely no' to Amy Acton." Notably, Ramaswamy did not mention the ad featuring Acton's estranged mother during his own remarks, instead criticising the media for covering up other aspects of her resume.
When Trump spoke, he filled that gap himself. He also took credit for removing Haitian immigrants from Springfield, Ohio, by ending their temporary protected status, saying the town had "went to hell" before adding: "You know what, the Haitians have moved out." On Issue 3, he was blunt about Democrats: "They don't want voter ID, why? Because they want to cheat." And on Husted, he mixed praise with a joke about the senator's football past, saying he had first seen Husted as "a very high-quality, nice man that if I got in a fight with him, I'd rip his heart out, and it probably would have been just the opposite," before adding that since he had told people Husted was "a phenomenal, not a good, a phenomenal football player, you have really taken on a new life."
Ohio has become one of the most watched battlegrounds of the 2026 midterms, even though Trump has won the state three times, most recently by 11 percentage points. The state has not elected a Democratic governor since 2006, yet polling suggests both of this year's marquee races are genuinely competitive, and forecasters have moved the governor's race from a toss-up to "leans Democrat" amid the backlash over the Ramaswamy ad.
That ad is the controversy that has defined the governor's race in its final weeks. The roughly $4 million spot features Donna Arthur, Acton's estranged mother, and it unleashed a wave of backlash, including cancellations of venues booked for Ramaswamy events. Governor DeWine publicly condemned the spot as "deeply, deeply troubling" and "wrong," urging the campaign to pull it, and saying family members should remain off limits in political campaigns. Husted distanced himself from the tactic, telling reporters: "I would not have run that ad." Vice President JD Vance, by contrast, has defended Ramaswamy. Trump, at Chillicothe, sided firmly with Ramaswamy.
The polling picture is genuinely mixed, which is why both campaigns claim momentum. A survey by Echelon Insights for NetChoice, a tech industry trade group, conducted October 16-23 among 508 likely voters with a margin of error of 5.2 percentage points, put Ramaswamy ahead 47 percent to 45 percent, with Libertarian Don Kissick at 4 percent, a statistical dead heat. The same poll found 70 percent support for Issue 3, with 28 percent opposed, and found inflation and the cost of living topping voter concerns at 57 percent, ahead of foreign policy at 24 percent and health care costs at 21 percent. A separate poll sponsored by the super PAC A Fight Worth Having and conducted by its polling unit RedBox Research, surveying 2,998 likely voters from October 20-23 with a margin of error of 4.6 points, showed Acton ahead 48.2 percent to 43.8 percent, and Brown leading Husted 46.9 percent to 44.2 percent in the Senate race.
The Senate race carries national stakes. Brown lost his seat in 2024 to Republican Senator Bernie Moreno and is seeking a comeback against Husted. Republicans currently hold a 53-47 Senate advantage, and the Ohio seat is one of the contests that will decide whether they keep it. The governor's race, meanwhile, is being fought against a backdrop of voter frustration over high gas prices linked to the unpopular war in Iran, spiking property tax bills and opposition to data centres, which have multiplied across Ohio.
Chillicothe itself added a local edge to the night. The city is Ohio's first capital, in Ross County, which Trump won three times, including by 39 percentage points in 2024. But it has also felt recent hardship: the Pixelle Specialty Solutions paper mill announced its closure in 2025, and Husted had joined other Ohio politicians in opposing the shutdown. Hours before the rally, Chillicothe Mayor Luke Feeney criticised Husted and Washington politicians for failing the area despite promises to help workers. "A promise means nothing without action," Feeney said, adding that he believed Trump was visiting so close to Election Day because Republicans are worried about the outcome. His message to the president was simple: "Show some kindness."
Even the venue drew attention before the rally began. The Shoemaker Center is a gym on a branch campus of Ohio University, and political reporters noted its modest size, with NBC News chief White House correspondent Garrett Haake writing that he could not recall Trump holding a rally in so small a room, estimating perhaps 1,000 people would fit, while HuffPost correspondent S.V. Date put total capacity, including the floor, at perhaps 3,000. The room was nevertheless packed and loud, as the reporters themselves predicted.
The Trump Chillicothe rally matters because Ohio is where the national midterm story and the kitchen-table story collide. Nationally, the election will decide control of Congress for the final two years of Trump's term, and the Senate map runs through states like Ohio, where a former senator is trying to win his seat back. Locally, the campaign is being fought over property taxes, gas prices, data centres, immigration and the cost of living, issues that cut across party lines in a state Trump has carried comfortably in presidential years but where Democrats have remained competitive down the ballot.
That tension explains the unusual shape of this year's Ohio races. A state Trump won by 11 points is now hosting a governor's race that forecasters lean toward the Democrat and a Senate race in which the Democrat leads in at least one recent poll. It also explains why Trump has now visited Ohio three times this cycle, following earlier stops in Vandalia near Dayton and Youngstown, plus a stop in northern Kentucky across the river from Cincinnati, and why Vance has made his own recent stops in the Cincinnati area and Lima. Republicans are working to maximise turnout in their strongholds, including rural southern Ohio, while Democrats are counting on frustration over prices and the war in Iran to carry voters who backed Trump for president but are open to splitting their ticket.
The ad controversy has sharpened that divide. For Ramaswamy's critics, including members of his own party, the spot crossed a line by dragging a candidate's family into the campaign. For his defenders, including Trump, the ad is fair game because the mother chose to speak. How voters judge that argument may help decide a race that polls show within a few points either way. The same is true of Issue 3: with 70 percent support in the NetChoice poll, the photo-ID amendment looks popular, but its presence on the ballot also gives Republicans a turnout argument in the campaign's final days.
Trump's defence of the Ramaswamy ad was the most quoted moment of the night. "Vivek was treated very unfairly. He had the mother of his opponent say that her daughter was a liar," Trump said. "And the press, the fake news, criticized him." He continued: "The mother said that Amy Acton, the daughter, is a liar, that she's no good, that she lied about the opponent. How the hell is that his problem?" Ramaswamy rose to his feet, clapping, as the crowd cheered.
Supporters in the crowd were divided on the ad, even as they backed Trump. Jeff Peecher, 66, who supported Trump in 2024 and said he had gone "both ways" on Ramaswamy and Husted, called the ad "cruel and rude," adding: "But that's politics. They all do it, that's a little extreme. But that her mother would come on and do that, it means a lot to me too that she would come on and say that." Robert Moore, 57, of Waverly, attending because "it's not every day you get to see the president," was unbothered, saying: "The political ads are what they are and they're disgusting on both sides." Roger Bellar, 73, of Chillicothe, at his second Trump rally, said: "I'm 73 years old and I've never seen a country so divided."
Protesters outside told a different story. Becky Borland, 76, a Chillicothe resident, said the country was broken and Trump was to blame: "Everything is upside down, everything is for the ultra rich and not for the average person." She said she tells counter-protesters "have a good day," adding: "They're allowed to have their views, we're allowed to have ours. If it keeps on, we won't be allowed to, that's what I'm here for, because democracy is at risk." Lisa Wayland, 67, also of Chillicothe, said she was not against Republicans but against Trump: "This is about morals, ethics, bringing dignity back to the White House." Gwyn Stonerock, 63, of Chillicothe, used a megaphone to lampoon Trump supporters as "pedophile protectors," saying she wanted to use her free speech and "protect children," and describing herself as a "God-fearing woman" who was sick of the war in Iran and Trump's approach to the presidency.
Democrats, meanwhile, were holding their own event on the same evening: Brown and Acton rallied in Cincinnati at 5:30 p.m., underscoring how both parties are fighting for Ohio's voters in the same hours. And the night's local message came from Mayor Feeney, whose "show some kindness" plea stood in deliberate contrast to the rally's combativeness, rooted in a mill town still waiting for help after the Pixelle closure.
The Chillicothe rally matters for three reasons. First, it shows where Trump is spending his final week: not in safe territory for a victory lap, but in a state he has won three times where both statewide races are nonetheless close. That is a sign of how much the political ground has shifted since 2024, with prices, the Iran war and the ad controversy all weighing on Republican candidates. Second, it shows Trump's closing argument in its rawest form: defend his candidates without apology, attack the media, promise action on immigration and voter ID, and trust that base turnout will carry the day. Third, it previews the argument both parties will make after November 3, whatever the result: Republicans will say a win vindicates the strategy, while Democrats will say close races in Trump-won Ohio prove the backlash is real.
For Husted and Ramaswamy, the rally was also a test of whether a presidential visit can move numbers that have barely budged for weeks. Rallies energise the base, but Ohio's early voting is already deep into its final week, and many voters have made up their minds. What a rally can still do is drive the last wave of turnout, and in races polling within a few points, that wave can be the difference.
Trump's schedule does not slow after Chillicothe. He is due in Rock Hill, South Carolina, on Thursday, October 29, for a rally in support of Senator Darline Graham, followed by stops in Daytona Beach, Florida, on Friday, Salina, Kansas, on Saturday, and a rally in Iowa on Sunday. Obama, meanwhile, continues his own closing swing for Democrats. Early voting continues into its final days, and Election Day itself is Tuesday, November 3, when Ohio voters will settle the Husted-Brown Senate race, the Ramaswamy-Acton governor's race and Issue 3, alongside control of the U.S. House and Senate.
Watch for fresh Ohio polling in the final days, for any further fallout from the Ramaswamy ad, and for whether the campaigns shift their closing messages from persuasion to pure turnout. If the polls are right, both Ohio races will be decided by a handful of points, and the Chillicothe rally may be remembered as the night Trump went all in on defending his candidates, whatever the cost.
It was a midterm campaign rally headlined by President Donald Trump on Wednesday evening, October 28, 2026, at the Shoemaker Center on the Ohio University Chillicothe campus, in support of Senator Jon Husted, gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy and other Ohio Republicans.
Trump defended Ramaswamy's ad featuring Amy Acton's estranged mother, saying "Vivek was treated very unfairly" and asking "How the hell is that his problem?" after the mother called her daughter a liar. Governor Mike DeWine had condemned the ad as "deeply, deeply troubling," while Husted said he would not have run it.
Republican Senator Jon Husted faces former Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown in the Senate race. Republican Vivek Ramaswamy faces Democrat Amy Acton, the former state health director, in the governor's race.
Issue 3 is a ballot measure that would put Ohio's existing photo-ID requirement for voting into the state constitution. Trump urged a yes vote at the rally, and a NetChoice-commissioned poll found 70 percent support for it.
Election Day is Tuesday, November 3, 2026. Voters will decide control of the U.S. House and Senate, along with the Ohio Senate and governor races and Issue 3.
Related coverage on US News Pulse: Trump's Texas rallies for Paxton, Trump's $5,000 dividend promise back in the spotlight and dark money flooding the 2026 midterms.
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