Donald Trump told Republicans at a Trump Ohio rally in Vandalia, Ohio, that the midterm elections would bring a “big surprise.” He spoke in a high school gymnasium near Dayton and urged supporters to vote. The rally was built around Jon Husted, Vivek Ramaswamy and other Ohio Republicans.
Butler High School gym
Trump said, “I think we’re going to have a big surprise, because they don’t know what’s happening,” then added, “Just get out and vote.” He also said, “If you do that, we’re going to win, and we’re going to win big. And we’re going to shove it up their ass.” The speech lasted 93 minutes inside the Butler High School gymnasium, which seats up to 5,000 people.
He also tied the rally directly to the state’s Republican ticket. Trump said, “Sen. Jon Husted votes to put Ohio first, and he votes all the time,” and said, “They think he’s phenomenal.” He backed Ramaswamy for governor and singled out Mike Turner and Derek Merrin, who is running against Marcy Kaptur in northwest Ohio.
Ohio Republican spending
The rally fit into a broader Republican push that the White House described as reaching at least 17 states before Nov. 3. Ohio drew extra attention because its Senate race was described as one of the most expensive and competitive in the country this fall. The Senate Leadership Fund poured another $14 million into Ohio this week, bringing its total investment there to $93 million.
That spending came after the National Republican Senatorial Committee warned in August that Husted’s past enthusiasm for building data centers was hurting his campaign. Trump tried to turn the race into a turnout test, saying, “When I run, we win,” and, “But for some reason, when I don’t run, they draw 44% less people.” He said he would ask supporters to just pretend that he was running.
Nick Owens worries
The turnout pitch ran into a familiar problem for Republicans. There were several stretches of empty seats in the upper bleachers when Trump took the stage, and Nick Owens, a former GOP chair in Ohio’s Brown County and former member of the state Board of Education, said he has real concerns that the every-four-year Trump voter will not come to the polls.
That makes the central question for Republicans in Ohio practical rather than rhetorical: whether a rally that drew Trump’s strongest lines can also move voters who will decide Husted’s race and the other contests he came to help.
