COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — President Donald Trump on Monday tried to boost Sen. Jon Husted’s reelection campaign by attacking two groups of Black immigrants during a rally in Ohio, where an organization with Republican ties began promoting a socialist candidate over Democratic nominee Sherrod Brown.
Trump also gave a shoutout to Rep. Max Miller, the Republican congressman who refused to stop running for reelection after facing accusations of domestic abuse,
pointing him out in the audience.
“Thank you, Max, for coming,” Trump said. “Thank you. Very good.”
Trump focused, however, on a favorite issue — immigration. Trump has long targeted Minnesota's large population of Somali immigrants and on Monday he linked that group to Haitians in Springfield, Ohio. During a presidential debate two years ago, Trump falsely accused the latter group of eating pets. Referencing those allegations Monday, Trump said “I was right” and boasted that Haitians were being driven out of the country by his administration's policies.
“If you want to stop Ohio from being plundered, ransacked and destroyed like Minnesota is being destroyed, we’re going to stop it,” Trump said. “Just like we did with Springfield, we’re going to stop it, we’re not going to let it happen.”
Trump's remarks came on the same day Homeland Security agents searched the Washington home of Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Somali immigrant who represents a Minnesota district.
The president visited Youngstown less than a week after rallying in Dayton. The intense focus on Ohio, a state Trump won by 11 percentage points, shows the challenging environment Republicans are navigating in the midterms amid the Iran war and lingering inflation. In addition to the Senate contest, Republican Vivek Ramaswamy is locked in a close governor's race with Democrat Amy Acton.
The rally was also a reminder of the extent Trump is willing to go to boost his allies — he announced a new submarine component manufacturing center will be located in nearby Cleveland during the rally — and his persistent focus on Black immigrants.
Back in 2018, Trump privately complained about immigrants from countries like Haiti — using an expletive to describe them — and wondering why the United States couldn't get more migrants from places like Norway. The statement was condemned as racist and Trump denied making it at the time.
But Trump admitted using the phrase last year, and his second administration has focused on restricting immigration and barring any refugees except white South Africans.
During the rally, he celebrated what he contended was an exodus of Haitians out of Springfield. The Trump administration ended a program that allowed more than 350,000 Haitians to stay in the country legally, which some of the roughly 15,000 Haitians who arrived in Springfield, population 60,000, in recent years.
“They're getting their town back,” Trump said about the original residents of Springfield, as he also stood by his debunked statement at the 2024 presidential debate that the Haitians were eating local pets. That claim was based on a secondhand Facebook post whose author deleted it and apologized, saying she had no evidence it was true.
Trump devoted even more time to insulting immigrants from Somalia, where he claimed that people were “low IQ” and “don't have pants to wear.”
Trump's main goal was to boost Husted, who was appointed to replace Vice President JD Vance in the Senate in 2024 and faces a tough challenge from Brown, a longtime senator who lost his seat to Republican Bernie Moreno in 2024.
The presidential visit came after mailers, sponsored by Enough Promises Ohio PAC, began arriving in voters’ mailboxes in recent days. They promote independent candidate Greg Levy over Brown with messages such as “Join the Revolution” and “Send a Worker to the Senate.” Levy describes himself as “Socialist running for the U.S. Senate to represent Ohio in 2026” on his X account.
Levy condemned the fliers for falsely impersonating his campaign and engaging in “dirty tricks” designed to mislead voters. He said he is considering legal action.
“This is a highly undemocratic practice and does a disservice to voters in Ohio and throughout the country,” he wrote on X.
According to Federal Election Commission filings, Enough Promises Ohio was founded Sept. 29. It has not yet had to disclose its contributors, but additional federal filings lay out a trail of associations linked to Republicans.
Enough Promises paid the firm Seven Farms more than $397,000 on two dates last week for printing, postage and mail services either supporting Levy or opposing Brown. Seven Farms, also a new entity, lists as its address the same South Carolina business suite as the one used by Whistlestop Strategies LLC.
Whistlestop is a direct mail outfit operated by Big Dog Strategies LLC, the strategy firm that advises Trump's MAGA Inc. super PAC and that managed Moreno's successful campaign against Brown in 2024.
Enough Promises Ohio and Big Dog did not respond to requests for comment.
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Associated Press writer Jill Colvin in New York contributed to this report.
