Trump Rallies in Chillicothe, Ohio on Wednesday as Two Polls Split the Governor's Race and Brown Leads Husted

CHILLICOTHE, Ohio - President Donald Trump holds a midterm rally on Wednesday at the Shoemaker Center on the Ohio University Chillicothe campus, campaigning for Republican Vivek Ramaswamy for governor and Sen. Jon Husted in the special Senate election, IANS reported. Doors open at 3:30 p.m. Eastern, the program begins at 5:30 p.m. and the president's remarks are scheduled for 7 p.m., according to the event listing reported by the Scioto Valley Guardian; the Gazette puts the Shoemaker Center's capacity at about 2,400 spectators. It is Trump's third campaign event in Ohio this month. The city of Chillicothe has announced closures around the visit - the City Park Annex, Kopp Street and the Paint Creek Recreational Trail and flood wall will be closed from noon to 9 p.m. Wednesday.

The polls he is flying into could hardly be tighter - or more contradictory. An Echelon Insights survey commissioned by NetChoice, a tech industry trade group, conducted October 16-23 among 508 likely voters with a margin of error of 5.2 points, put Ramaswamy at 47 percent and Democrat Amy Acton at 45 percent, with Libertarian Don Kissick at 4 percent - a statistical dead heat. A separate poll sponsored by the super PAC A Fight Worth Having and conducted by its polling unit, RedBox Research, among 2,998 likely voters from October 20-23 with a margin of error of 4.6 points, showed the opposite: Acton ahead, 48.2 percent to 43.8 percent. The same RedBox survey showed Democrat Sherrod Brown leading Husted in the Senate race, 46.9 percent to 44.2 percent. In the Echelon poll, inflation and the cost of living topped voter concerns at 57 percent, ahead of foreign policy at 24 percent and healthcare costs at 21 percent; 70 percent of respondents backed State Issue 3, a proposed constitutional amendment requiring photo ID to vote, against 28 percent opposed.

The Democrats are not ceding the day: Brown and Acton hold a rally of their own in Cincinnati at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, IANS reported, while Ramaswamy closes a final-week bus tour that has crossed Noble, Washington, Meigs, Licking and Knox counties. Ohio's two races carry national weight beyond the state: the Husted-Brown special election is for the seat Vice President JD Vance vacated, in a Senate that stands 53-47 Republican, and the governor's race would make Ramaswamy, a biotech entrepreneur and former presidential candidate, Ohio's first Indian American governor if he wins. Both are decided on November 3 - which is why, six days out, the president is spending his Wednesday night in a 2,400-seat gym in Chillicothe.