By Samuel Olusegun Precious
It is a tale of two presidents on the campaign trail, and the road is looking dicey for the Republican Party less than a week to the November 3 midterm elections in the United States.
Both President Donald Trump and former President Barack Obama hit the stump on Wednesday, in a final-week showdown that underscored how national this midterm has become.Trump rallied Republicans in Chillicothe, Ohio, campaigning for Senate incumbent Jon Husted who faces former Senator Sherrod Brown, while Obama drew thousands in Morrow, Georgia, near Atlanta, campaigning for Senator Jon Ossoff and gubernatorial candidate Keisha Lance Bottoms.
The contrast was stark. Obama, reprising his 2008 message of hope and change, told supporters that change is in the air and urged voters to seize their “last best chance to rein in non-serious” Trump.
“These are not serious people. And we’re all paying the price for their lack of seriousness,” Obama said in his 45-minute speech, accusing Trump of profiteering, fueling inflation and using the presidency for personal gain.
He also mocked Trump’s gilded White House renovations as looking like “Saddam Hussein opened a Cheesecake Factory,” a joke that reportedly triggered a full government response including a Treasury press conference in front of a Cheesecake Factory.
Trump, on his part, doubled down on his base strategy. After casting his early ballot in Florida for “all Republicans,” he defended controversial ads by Ohio Republican gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy and painted Democratic Senate candidate in Michigan, Abdul El-Sayed, as an extremist – attacks Obama likened to the birther smears he himself faced.
“We have seen this movie before. I starred in it… This stuff didn’t work on me. Not in Michigan. It’s not going to work on Abdul,” Obama said in Detroit.
The stakes are high. All 435 House seats and 35 Senate seats are up. Republicans currently hold a narrow 53-47 in the Senate and 218-214 in the House. But polling is troubling for the GOP.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll October 22-26 showed Democrats leading 47% to 36% among registered voters, 50% to 41% with leaners. Trump’s approval sits at 32%, with 73% saying cost of living is going in the wrong direction and 63% believing Trump and family improperly profited from crypto.
Obama framed the election as a “circuit breaker” to restore accountability.
“We’re not stuck with a spineless Congress and Republican governors who are handling lawlessness and carelessness and cruelty,” he said.
Trump is betting that his loyal base in places like eastern Michigan, where he won 66% in 2024, will turn out to protect his agenda for his final two years. With Obama still the Democrats’ best motivator nearly a decade after leaving office, and Trump still the Republicans’ dominant force, the midterms have become a referendum on Trumpism itself – and Republicans face a tough road.
