President Donald Trump campaigned in Vandalia, Ohio, on Saturday night alongside former NFL coach and TV personality Jon Gruden to drum up support for Vivek Ramaswamy and Sen. Jon Husted (R-OH).
“I’m from Ohio,” Gruden said. “My Mom and Dad are from Cleveland, I was born in Sandusky, and I went to the University of Dayton, and I’m damn proud of it, man,” Gruden said at the beginning of the event. He told the crowd about Husted’s past as a “great” football player at the University of Dayton, highlighting his “work ethic, commitment, and day-to-day mental toughness.” Trump also tied the rally to football at the beginning of his speech, referencing Ohio State’s Saturday afternoon victory over Iowa. The rally focused mostly on manufacturing and investment opportunities the Trump administration has secured since Trump took office in January 2025.
Trump also discussed data centers, a particularly contentious topic in the state, as Democrats hope the public’s negative perception of AI presents an opportunity to tie Husted to data center development. Trump praised legislation sponsored by Husted that would codify the White House’s Ratepayer Protection Pledge, which seeks to ensure developers “fund the electricity generation and infrastructure their projects require.”
“Now your great Senator… introduced the Ratepayer Protection Act to prevent data centers from raising electricity costs and require them to pay their own way, it’s very good,” Trump said. “Just three days ago, Senator Husted brought that bill to the Senate floor and almost every single Dumocrat in the Senate voted to block it, they didn’t want it. Only because we wanted it, probably because I wanted it, to be honest, to be more exact. I think if it was somebody else, maybe they would have said, ‘yes'” Trump said.
DEMOCRATS DUMP $7 MILLION IN ANTI-DATA CENTER MESSAGING IN OHIO IN HOPES OF FLIPPING SENATE SEAT
“Before you know it, this election is over, yes? It’s over. But what we got to do is we got to do our part. Early voting starts Tuesday. Can we be there or not?” Gruden said to loud applause.
Ramaswamy, who burst onto the national scene as a 2024 Republican presidential candidate, almost served in the Trump administration before electing to run for governor of his home state. Neither he nor Husted holds a strong lead over their Democratic opponents despite Trump winning Ohio in 2024 by more than 11 percentage points.
Continue reading...
[ H/T Washington Examiner ]
