Trump, Vance and Obama Make Final Pushes to Midterm Voters in Key States

With less than a week until Election Day on Nov. 3, President Donald Trump is heading back to Ohio on Wednesday for the third time in a month, as he works to help Republicans keep control of Congress. On the same day, former President Barack Obama is set to campaign for Democrats in Georgia.

Trump is concentrating on states he won comfortably two years ago. The focus comes as Americans deal with record fuel prices, rising costs and an unpopular war in Iran. He visited Mississippi on Monday and Texas on Tuesday, and he plans to travel to South Carolina, Florida, Kansas and Iowa in the coming days.

The schedule points to a defensive posture for Republicans. The party's finances, along with the president's signature super PAC, MAGA Inc., have helped sustain its candidates in the final stretch.

Vice President JD Vance is scheduled to appear in North Carolina, where Republicans have been pessimistic about holding a Senate seat. Former national party chair Michael Whatley is the Republican candidate in the race to succeed retiring Sen. Thom Tillis. He faces Democrat Roy Cooper, a former governor.

Obama, the last Democratic president to win two terms, has been campaigning more often for his party and serving as a foil to Trump. At a recent event in Michigan, he criticized the president over his White House renovations and for growing wealthier while in office. In Georgia, he is expected to appear with former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, who is seeking to become the first Black woman elected governor in the United States. He will also join Sen. Jon Ossoff, who is running for reelection and is viewed as a potential future presidential candidate.

In Ohio, the Republican ticket features wealthy biotech executive Vivek Ramaswamy for governor and Sen. Jon Husted, who hopes to serve out the remainder of Vance's term. Trump has often showered Husted with praise, and he regularly strays into tangents about the senator's physique, a former college football player, wherever he campaigns. Former Sen. Sherrod Brown is the Democratic nominee for that Senate seat.

Ramaswamy is running against Amy Acton, a former public health official who served as Ohio's state health director. His campaign has stirred a late controversy with an ad featuring Acton's mother, Donna Arthur. In it, Arthur calls her daughter "a liar" who "needs help" because of "a serious problem" being honest about her past.

Arthur has not seen her daughter in nearly 50 years. She lost custody of her children after her husband, the children's stepfather, was indicted for raping Acton when she was 12. Acton says she has not seen her mother since 1978.

Trump has backed the ad, but other Republicans, including Husted, have distanced themselves from it.