Obama campaigns in Georgia as Trump stumps in Ohio in dueling midterms rallies – live | US midterm elections 2026
Obama campaigns in Georgia as Trump stumps in Ohio in dueling midterm rallies
With midterm elections less than a week away, Donald Trump and Barack Obama were set to appear at rallies on Wednesday night as Republicans and Democrats make some of their final appeals to voters in key states.
Obama, who was recently in Michigan to support Abdul El-Sayed, is in Georgia, where he will campaign for Keisha Lance Bottoms, the former Atlanta mayor seeking the governor’s office, and the senator Jon Ossoff.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump, who has appeared at more than 20 rallies in October, was returning to the battleground state of Ohio to support Republican candidates, including Vivek Ramaswamy, who is running for governor, and Jon Husted for Senate.
JD Vance was in North Carolina stumping for Michael Whatley, the former RNC chair, who faces a tough race for Senate against Democrat and former governor Roy Cooper.
Key events
-
As Trump boasts about Iran war in Ohio, Ossoff mocks his claims in Georgia
-
Democratic congresswoman Haley Stevens’ fiancé says he is voting for Republican Mike Rogers, not Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan Senate race
-
Obama campaigns in Georgia as Trump stumps in Ohio in dueling midterm rallies
-
Vance contacts Iran security chief to resume peace negotiations – report
-
Summary: the day so far
-
Trump rages at Alaska Democrat whose campaign reportedly recruited man with same name as Republican opponent
-
How an innocent chain restaurant became a talking point in the final days before the midterm election
-
Federal Reserve keeps interest rates steady
-
Dolores Huerta, titanic leader in labor and civil rights movement, dies at 96
-
A Senate race in deep red South Carolina could go either way, poll finds
-
‘A revolution in slow motion’: is Arizona’s wealthiest district finally done with Trump?
-
Will ‘prairie populism’ defeat Republicans in the midterms? – podcast
-
US costs of Iran war rise to over $47bn, Pentagon estimates
-
How Trump is trying to disrupt the midterms – video explainer
-
Mark Kelly on possible 2028 run: ‘I’m considering it’
-
Alaskan Democrats intentionally sought out candidate with same name as Senate component, NYT reports
-
The Trump prosecutor trying to stop California ballots from being counted
-
RFK Jr faces heavy criticism over anti-Arab remarks on campaign trail
-
Flavio Bolsonaro lands in Miami, having fled to US following Brazilian election defeat
-
Republican senator Lisa Murkowski backs Democrat in Alaska governor’s race
-
Trump bound for Ohio, and Vance for North Carolina, with less than a week until the midterms
-
Obama to campaign in Georgia alongside Jon Ossoff and Keisha Lance Bottoms
-
Flávio Bolsonaro, defeated rightwing Brazilian presidential candidate, expected to arrive in Miami
-
Federal judge rules Trump-appointed US prosecutor in Los Angeles isn’t legally serving
As Trump boasts about Iran war in Ohio, Ossoff mocks his claims in Georgia
At rallies occurring at the same time, Donald Trump just boasted in Ohio about what he calls the great success of his war in Iran, while Jon Ossoff, in Georgia, mocked Trump for that war and other failures.
Trump made no mention of the fact that the war with Iran he started in February is still not over, and repeated his lie that the war was necessary to prevent Iran from making a nuclear weapon.
“While the crook president and his crook family rake in billions from all over the world, you pay more for everything,” Ossoff told Georgians. “They lied us into war and spent most of the last year covering up for the world’s most famous pedophile.”
“Now remember, they also promised peace. They promised peace. Instead, today marks eight months of a needless war that the useless, draft-dodging commander-in-chief can’t figure out how to end or how to win,” Ossoff continued.
“Remember last year, last year they claimed Iran’s nuclear program had been obliterated? Do you remember that? And then this year, they told us it posed an imminent threat. Both times lies,” he added.
“On day four of the war, day four, the president declared victory,” he continued. “On day 11, Trump said, quote, ‘the war is very complete’. Day 13, quote, ‘we won’. Day 21, ‘getting very close’. Day 32, quote ‘leaving very soon’. On day 40, the president declared, quote, ‘total and complete victory’. Today is day 243. Twenty one Americans are dead and hundreds wounded. Iran still has its uranium and drones and missiles while diesel hits its all time high. They’ve drained our stockpiles to achieve nothing while the president builds himself a victory arch.”
Democratic congresswoman Haley Stevens’ fiancé says he is voting for Republican Mike Rogers, not Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan Senate race
Jason Turkish, who is engaged to be married to Democratic congresswoman Haley Stevens, appeared at a campaign event for Republican Senate candidate Mike Rogers in Michigan on Wednesday and told reporters that he was voting for the Republican, not Democrat Abdul El-Sayed, who narrowly defeated Stevens in the Democratic primary in August.
Turkish, a disabilities and civil rights lawyer, said at a Republican Jewish Coalition event for Rogers that El-Sayed’s refusal to say that Iran was a greater threat to the United States than Israel in the first general election debate was “100% disqualifying to be a United States senator”.
Turkish, described by Jewish Insider as “a prominent Jewish Democrat in Michigan”, said that El-Sayed’s rhetoric “makes folks unsafe”.
“When he says genocide over and over,” Turkish said of El-Sayed’s criticism of Israel’s destruction of Gaza, “he makes my community less safe.”
“We’ve never seen a candidate for US Senate act so recklessly toward the safety of Jews in the community as we have from Abdul,” Turkish told the Detroit News.
According to the Detroit News, Turkish has donated Democrats and Republicans, including $200,000 to Democratic candidates in the midterm elections and over $24,000 to support Maine Republican Susan Collins.
Donald Trump is scheduled to speak soon at a rally for Republican candidates in Chillicothe, Ohio, where the party’s nominee for governor, Vivek Ramaswamy, and the sitting senator Jon Husted, have already spoken.
Meanwhile in Georgia, Barack Obama is waiting to address a Democratic rally in Atlanta, in support of the party’s nominee for governor, Keisha Lance Bottoms and sitting senator Jon Ossoff.
Bottoms and Ossoff are scheduled to speak immediately before Obama. The Georgia rally is running about 30 minutes behind schedule, meaning that it is likely that Trump and Obama will be speaking at the same time.
As we watch the simultaneous rallies for in Ohio and Georgia, we are currently being treated to a musical split-screen.
Janelle Monáe is currently performing live in Atlanta, following a performance by the HBCU Clark Atlanta University marching band, while Trump supporters in Ohio are being treated to his rally playlist, which includes songs from a number of artists who sued to have him stop using their music. The crowd is currently listening to Sinéad O’Connor’s version of Nothing Compares 2 U, which her estate said in 2024 she would have been “disgusted, hurt, and insulted” to have used at Trump’s rallies.
During tonight’s rally in Georgia, Raphael Warnock, the state’s Democratic senator, described the upcoming election as a “moral moment in America”.
“There are demagogues at the highest levels of our government who are trying to divide us and distract us in order to dominate us, but we come here tonight to say the jig is up.”
Warnock criticized Republicans in Congress for supporting legislation that will take away healthcare from millions of Americans, and cause 1.2 million children to lose access to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Snap) benefits. He referenced a photo of Republicans praying before voting on Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
“Our nations leaders, led by the speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, gathered together, put their arms around each other and they knelt down to pray, donning the garments of virtue while literally taking food out of the mouths of hungry children,” Warnock said.
Obama campaigns in Georgia as Trump stumps in Ohio in dueling midterm rallies
With midterm elections less than a week away, Donald Trump and Barack Obama were set to appear at rallies on Wednesday night as Republicans and Democrats make some of their final appeals to voters in key states.
Obama, who was recently in Michigan to support Abdul El-Sayed, is in Georgia, where he will campaign for Keisha Lance Bottoms, the former Atlanta mayor seeking the governor’s office, and the senator Jon Ossoff.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump, who has appeared at more than 20 rallies in October, was returning to the battleground state of Ohio to support Republican candidates, including Vivek Ramaswamy, who is running for governor, and Jon Husted for Senate.
JD Vance was in North Carolina stumping for Michael Whatley, the former RNC chair, who faces a tough race for Senate against Democrat and former governor Roy Cooper.
Donald Trump continued to rail against Alaska Democrat Mary Peltola, accusing her of “Voter Fraud at the Highest Level” following a report from the New York Times that her campaign recruited a man with the same name as her Republican opponent.
In his fourth social media post on the subject in two hours, the president said on Wednesday that Peltola should be removed from the ballot and prosecuted: “Nothing else will do! This behavior in our Elections cannot be allowed to continue.”
Peltola’s campaign recruited the candidate in order to peel away votes, the New York Times reported.
JD Vance echoed Trump’s criticism. “Even the New York Times admits that Mary Peltola is a total crook who tried to rig the Alaska senate race in her favor,” he said.
Vance contacts Iran security chief to resume peace negotiations – report
JD Vance has reportedly contacted Iran’s security chief in an effort to resume peace negotiations.
The Wall Street Journal, citing US officials and others familiar with the matter, reported on Wednesday that the vice-president sent a letter to Mohsen Rezaei, the hardline leader of Iran’s supreme national security council, at Trump’s urging.
Vance is seeking to determine whether the countries can “find enough common ground” to deter the president from ordering an attack in the near future, according to the outlet.
The development comes just ahead of the midterm elections, and Trump’s deeply unpopular war threatens to hurt Republicans. The US military has already spent over $47bn on the conflict, more than 25% higher than the defense department’s estimate in the summer, according to Pentagon data first obtained by Reuters.
Summary: the day so far
Trump is bound for Ohio to campaign for Republican candidates in the state. Republicans are defending a seat there in a Senate race that has turned out much closer than might’ve been expected in reliably red Ohio. JD Vance, meanwhile, is campaigning in North Carolina, where Republicans face even longer odds.
Obama will campaign in Georgia alongside local Democrats. Obama will join Jon Ossoff, the Democratic senator, and Keisha Lance Bottoms, the former Atlanta mayor seeking to flip the Georgia governor’s office, on the campaign stage.
Alaska Democrats intentionally recruited a candidate with the same name as their opponent, according to a new report. The New York Times found that Mary Peltola’s campaign had, despite its public denials, recruited a man named Dan Sullivan to run against the Republican incumbent, also named Dan Sullivan. The revelation prompted Trump to call for Peltola’s removal from the ticket.
Flavio Bolsonaro, the defeated rightwing candidate for Brazil’s presidency, landed in Miami. Bolsonaro had been ordered to turn over his passports in connection with a criminal investigation following his defeat by leftwing incumbent Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Instead, he fled across Brazil’s border with Argentina and flew to the US, where he’s been granted apparent safe harbor by Trump’s state department.
The US Federal Reserve opted to keep interest rates steady. Despite inflation remaining above the central bank’s target of 2%, its leaders chose to maintain interest rates at their current level.
Trump shared another post to social media railing against Mary Peltola and calling for her disqualification over recruiting a second Dan Sullivan into the Senate race:
“In Alaska, I don’t think Mary Peltola, after perpetrating such a terrible scheme, should be allowed to run, because this is ELECTION FRAUD,” Trump wrote. “The Democrats cheated! They found a man named Dan Sullivan, put him on the Ballot, then lied to the Court, and said they didn’t know anything about it. That’s perjury. She shouldn’t be allowed to run, and neither should the FAKE Dan Sullivan!”
Trump rages at Alaska Democrat whose campaign reportedly recruited man with same name as Republican opponent
Donald Trump responded on Wednesday afternoon to a new investigation from the New York Times, which found that Mary Peltola’s Alaska Senate campaign actively recruited a man with the exact same name as Peltola’s Republican opponent in order to peel away votes.
In a social media post, Trump insisted that Peltola’s actions were illegal (it’s not clear that they were) and that she should be disqualified from the race.
“It has just been determined that the Democrats in Alaska illegally searched for, and recruited, a man named Dan Sullivan to run against our distinguished Republican Senator, Dan Sullivan, in order to defraud, confuse, and obfuscate the Election, thereby taking votes away from the REAL Senator, Dan Sullivan,” Trump wrote on his personal social media account.
The Peltola campaign had, up until now, denied any connection to the campaign launched by the second Dan Sullivan, who just so happened to share the name of Dan Sullivan, the Republican incumbent whose Senate seat Peltola is trying to win.
The Department of Justice has moved to try to block the certification of the Alaska Senate race, should the second, non-Republican Mr Sullivan pull enough votes to shift the outcome.
Trump continued: “The Democrats’ false statements were made under oath in Federal Court. Therefore, they perjured themselves, and should be liable for very serious consequences. Mary Peltola should suffer the Legal and Political consequences for what she has done, A FRAUD ON THE AMERICAN PUBLIC, and Dan Sullivan should be allowed to run without either Mary Peltola or FAKE Dan Sullivan on the Ballot.”
