Barack Obama returned to the midterm campaign trail on October 24 with rallies in Ohio and Michigan, urging Democrats to vote early and framing the November 3 election as a chance to check President Donald Trump’s administration.
Speaking in Cleveland, the former president backed former senator Sherrod Brown and gubernatorial candidate Amy Acton, then headed to Detroit in the evening to campaign for Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed. The two-state swing put Obama at the centre of some of the closest races in a midterm election that will decide control of Congress.
What happened in Cleveland
Obama appeared at Cleveland Public Auditorium alongside Brown and Acton, addressing thousands of supporters in his first campaign trip to Ohio since 2018, when he campaigned for Rich Cordray against then-candidate Mike DeWine.
Brown, a former three-term senator, is trying to win back his seat from Republican incumbent Jon Husted. Acton is running for governor against Republican Vivek Ramaswamy, a former presidential candidate. A Democratic win in the governor’s race would put a Democrat in the Ohio governor’s office for the first time since 2011, according to reports of the rally.
Obama’s message was blunt. “After two years of chaos and cruelty and corruption and incompetence, the likes of which we have not seen in the modern era, you get a chance to say, ‘Enough is enough,'” he said. “We are voting for change right here in Ohio.”
He also told the crowd not to wait until election day. “Don’t procrastinate, don’t equivocate,” he said, noting that early voting is already open in Ohio.
What Obama said about Trump
Much of the Cleveland speech was aimed directly at Trump. Obama blamed the administration for rising living costs, pointing to soaring fuel prices as a top concern for voters, and criticised its policies on immigration and foreign policy, including what he called an unnecessary war that nobody asked for.
“We’ve got two more years in this administration,” he said. “That’s how our system of government works. But you know what we’re not stuck with? We’re not stuck with the spineless Congress and Republican governors who are enabling lawlessness and carelessness and cruelty and indifference for working people.”
He also mocked Trump’s remodelling of the White House, saying it looks “like Saddam Hussein opened a Cheesecake Factory.”
Obama portrayed Ramaswamy as an opportunist and Husted as a rubber stamp for the Trump administration. Brown told the crowd: “The national media’s never going to write off Ohio ever again.”
The Ramaswamy ad row
Obama also condemned a Ramaswamy campaign advertisement featuring Acton’s estranged mother, Donna Stearns Arthur, accusing Acton of lying about her childhood and urging voters not to support her. Acton’s mother lost custody of her children after Acton’s stepfather was charged with sexually abusing Acton as a child.
“I don’t know what’s happened where the standards of behavior have gotten so low that somebody can run an ad like that,” Obama said. “There’s got to be something inside you where you just say no office is worth stooping that low.”
Ramaswamy has doubled down on the advertisement and rejected a call from Governor Mike DeWine to take it down. A Ramaswamy spokesperson responded before Obama’s speech by criticising the Affordable Care Act, Obama’s signature health care law, and saying Ohioans could not afford a governor who, in the campaign’s words, shows up for Obama but never shows up for them.
Acton answered directly from the stage. “In Ohio, we work hard and we watch out for one another,” she said. “My opponent just doesn’t get it. Mr. Ramaswamy, you are not just out of touch. You are out for yourself, and you are a danger to my state.”
A spokesperson for Husted, Amy Natoce, said policies backed by Obama and Brown raised taxes and enabled chaos at the southern border, adding: “The sight of Sherrod Brown and Barack Obama together again should send shivers down Ohioans’ spines.”
Why Ohio matters
Ohio has become harder territory for Democrats in recent years, but the party sees an opening this year as Trump’s approval rating falls and voters struggle with the cost of living. Trump and Vice President JD Vance have both visited the state in recent weeks to campaign for Husted and Ramaswamy.
Reports of the race describe both Ohio contests as tight, with polls cited in coverage giving Democrats a slight lead in each, while warning that the results are expected to be close. Nationally, the same reporting suggests Democrats could regain control of the House of Representatives, while the Senate contest remains much more competitive.
The Detroit stop: backing El-Sayed in Michigan
After Cleveland, Obama travelled to Detroit for a rally with El-Sayed, a former public health official from the party’s left wing who is running against Republican former representative Mike Rogers.
El-Sayed won a divisive Democratic primary by less than a percentage point and has been working to unite the party’s base in Michigan. His appearance with Obama in Detroit, a city that is about three-quarters Black, was seen as an effort to strengthen his support among Black voters: in the primary, his opponent Haley Stevens won Wayne County, which includes Detroit, by about six percentage points. Former Vice President Kamala Harris campaigned for El-Sayed in September.
El-Sayed has not always agreed with Obama. After Obama’s 2012 re-election, he criticised the former president for not following through on all of his progressive campaign promises. Earlier this month, however, he called Obama “foundational” to his ability to run for office, while saying there were still things he would have done differently. The two spoke by phone shortly after El-Sayed’s primary win in August.
Michigan also has open races for governor, attorney general and secretary of state. Jocelyn Benson, the Democratic nominee for governor, was slated to appear alongside other down-ballot candidates; she is running against Republican Representative John James.
The wider midterm picture
Obama’s swing comes ten days before an election in which control of the Senate and the House is at stake, and in which ballot and voting rules are already being contested. The Justice Department’s California ballot order, which directed counties to set aside mail-in ballots from suspected noncitizens, is one of the other midterm flashpoints already covered in this site’s US News section, and it underlines how much of this campaign is being fought over the rules of voting itself as well as over the candidates.
Trump, meanwhile, campaigned on the same day. He cast an early ballot in Florida on October 24 before travelling to a rally in Perry, Georgia, where he was due to speak on Saturday evening. Obama is due to headline a rally in Georgia next week with Senator Jon Ossoff and gubernatorial candidate Keisha Lance Bottoms.
Timeline
- September 2026: Kamala Harris campaigns for El-Sayed in Michigan.
- August 2026: El-Sayed wins the Michigan Democratic Senate primary by less than a percentage point; he speaks with Obama by phone shortly afterwards.
- Recent weeks: Trump and JD Vance visit Ohio to campaign for Husted and Ramaswamy.
- October 24, 2026: Trump casts an early ballot in Florida, then heads to a rally in Georgia.
- October 24, 2026: Obama rallies in Cleveland with Brown and Acton, then in Detroit with El-Sayed.
- Next week: Obama is due to headline a Georgia rally with Ossoff and Bottoms.
- November 3, 2026: Midterm election day.
What happens next
Both parties will now fight over turnout in the final ten days. For Democrats, the question is whether Obama’s star power can lift Brown, Acton and El-Sayed in states where the party has struggled statewide in recent cycles. For Republicans, the counter-argument, already voiced by the Husted and Ramaswamy campaigns, is that Obama-era policies are part of the problem voters want to move past.
With polls pointing to close races in Ohio and Michigan, and with the Senate balance potentially hinging on a handful of states, the two rallies were less a victory lap than an early-voting push: Obama’s closing instruction in Cleveland was, above all, to vote now rather than later.
Frequently asked questions
Why is Barack Obama campaigning in Ohio and Michigan? He is campaigning for Democratic Senate candidates Sherrod Brown in Ohio and Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan, and for Ohio gubernatorial candidate Amy Acton, ten days before the November 3 midterm election.
Who is Sherrod Brown running against? Brown, a former three-term senator, is trying to unseat Republican incumbent Jon Husted in Ohio.
Who is Abdul El-Sayed running against? El-Sayed is running against Republican former representative Mike Rogers in Michigan, after winning the Democratic primary by less than a percentage point.
What did Obama criticise Donald Trump for? He blamed the Trump administration for rising living costs and fuel prices, criticised its immigration and foreign policy, and described the past two years as marked by “chaos and cruelty and corruption and incompetence.”
When is the midterm election? Election day is November 3, 2026, with early voting already open in Ohio.