Donald Trump’s whirlwind US midterm election campaign returned to Ohio for the third time in a month as Barack Obama rallied for the Democrats in Georgia.
The US president has campaigned at more than 20 rallies this month and has packed upcoming days with more travel. Trump has kept his focus on states that he won handily two years ago as Americans confront record fuel prices, rising costs and an unpopular war in Iran.
Trump pledged to establish the new US Space Force academy in Ohio, but only if Senator Jon Husted wins re-election.
“And I wanted you to know that if Jon Husted wins, I am going to consider putting the Space Academy right here,” he said.
Trump signed an executive order in August to to establish a tuition-free, four-year Space Academy, modelled after the military service academies like the Naval Academy in Maryland.
Trump also told the crowd in Ohio that the “White House is beautiful” as he continues renovations, taking a jab at Obama’s criticisms of them.
Obama ripped into Trump’s focus on renovations over the weekend, telling a crowd in Ohio: “He’s got the White House looking like Saddam Hussein opened a Cheesecake Factory.”
The last Democratic president to serve two terms, Obama is increasingly campaigning for his party, acting as a foil to Trump.
Obama was in Georgia supporting Senator Jon Ossoff, the Democratic incumbent whose race appears to have shifted to safer ground, and Keisha Lance Bottoms, the former mayor of Atlanta, who is in a competitive race for governor against Rick Jackson, a Republican billionaire.
Trump has lately intensified his anti-Muslim rhetoric against Democratic Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, who told a crowd at an event in Wyandotte, “They want to point to me and my name. They’re doing this because they’re trying to distract us.”
“Michiganders are big-hearted. We’re open-minded. We don’t care as much how you pray; rather, we care what you pray for,” he said.
Also hitting the road was US Vice President JD Vance, who campaigned in North Carolina, where Republicans have been pessimistic about retaining a Senate seat.
Former national party chair Michael Whatley faces Democrat Roy Cooper, a former governor, in the race to succeed retiring Republican Senator Thom Tillis.
“I don’t just want the American dream for me or for my generation. I want it for you, and I want it for the generation that comes after us. I want young people to be able to afford a home,” Vance told a rally in Kinston, North Carolina.
“I want my kids to raise a family in a country that is vibrant and thriving and free and prosperous.”
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