CHILLICOTHE, Ohio — President Donald Trump brought the Republican midterm push to southern Ohio on Wednesday night, October 28, defending gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy’s most controversial ad and taking credit for saving Sen. Jon Husted’s campaign during a rally at Ohio University Chillicothe’s Shoemaker Center, according to The Columbus Dispatch.
The stop was Trump’s third in Ohio in the final stretch before the November 3 election, and it paired the state’s two marquee Republican races: Husted’s tight contest with former Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown for the U.S. Senate seat, and Ramaswamy’s race against former state health director Amy Acton for governor. Trump urged supporters to vote as Republicans work to protect their hold on Congress, according to reporting on the rally by iHeartMedia’s news service.
Much of the night centered on the Ramaswamy ad featuring Donna Arthur, Acton’s estranged mother, who accuses her daughter of lying about Ramaswamy and about her upbringing, The Columbus Dispatch reported. “Vivek was treated very unfairly. He had the mother of his opponent say that her daughter was a liar,” Trump told the crowd, according to The Columbus Dispatch. “And the press, the fake news, criticized him.”
Ramaswamy did not mention the ad in his own remarks. He instead attacked Acton’s tenure as state health director during the COVID-19 pandemic, including school and business closures, The Columbus Dispatch reported. “I am running against a woman who has already shown you who she is and what she’s made of,” Ramaswamy told the crowd, according to The Columbus Dispatch. He also pledged to end sanctuary cities and cut property taxes.
On the Senate race, Trump called Brown “a stone-cold loser for Ohio” and credited his own praise of Husted for a polling rebound in a race that remains close. “He went from being somewhat down to somewhat up in one day, and I mean a lot of points. I have to say, I saved his ass,” Trump said, according to The Columbus Dispatch. Husted, whom Gov. Mike DeWine appointed to fill the seat Vice President JD Vance left, spoke about being adopted and asked the crowd whether Brown had made their lives better in more than 50 years in office, The Columbus Dispatch reported.
Trump also dangled a prize for Ohio: the U.S. Space Academy. “I want you to know that if Jon Husted wins, I am going to consider putting the Space Academy right here in Ohio,” Trump said, according to The Columbus Dispatch. Ohio’s bid leans on Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and NASA’s Glenn Research Center near Cleveland.
For Chillicothe itself, the pitch was jobs. Sen. Bernie Moreno credited tariffs with adding jobs at the nearby Kenworth plant and called the 2025 closure of the Pixelle paper mill — which cost Ross County more than 800 direct jobs — an “absolute gut punch,” according to The Columbus Dispatch. “The U.S. Paper Mill Company is bringing paper manufacturing back to this very town,” Trump told the crowd, according to The Columbus Dispatch; the company is currently producing nitrile gloves at the site and leasing land for a data center.
What happens next is Election Day itself: Ohio voters decide both races on Tuesday, November 3, with polls open from 6:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m., and the Chillicothe rally stands as the Republican ticket’s closing argument in a region still waiting on the paper mill site’s promised revival.
Photo: OhioU, CC BY-SA