CLEVELAND – Former President Barack Obama used his first campaign speech of the 2026 election cycle to criticize President Donald Trump and defend his own record.
During an appearance in Cleveland on Saturday for Democratic Senate nominee Sherrod Brown and his gubernatorial counterpart Amy Acton, Obama defended his foreign policy amid the Iran war and his immigration positions, considering scrutiny of the number of deportations during his two terms in office.
Obama first underscored his decision to sign the Iran nuclear agreement, contending it undermined the threat of the regime’s nuclear ambitions.
“He pulled out of the JCPOA, starts this war,” the former president said of Trump. “Seven months later, six months after they declared victory, how’s that war going?”
“Our allies and our bases have been attacked,” he added. “Americans have been killed. Hundreds of Americans have been wounded. We have run down our stock of missiles. And Iran now has veto power over the Strait of Hormuz, where oil goes through to the world market. This is the reason why the price of oil is up. This is the reason why the price of just about everything is up.”
Obama then remembered political attacks against him “for tightening up enforcement at the border,” before differentiating his policies from those of Trump.
“I don’t recall anybody campaigning on sending masked agents running through our streets,” he said. “Don’t recall anybody talking about law-abiding citizens being arrested, detained, or shot.”
Obama’s chosen a selective post-presidential strategy regarding his political activity to save his political capital and Democratic goodwill for when it can have the most impact.
On Saturday, the former president tried to use that capital and goodwill to make a moral case for why Ohio voters should cast their ballots for Democrats, arguing politics is missing “basic decency” and citing Martin Luther King Jr. calling for honesty, kindness, and love.
“Yes, we need to lower prices and put money in people’s pockets,” he said. “[But] if we don’t return to some of those old-fashioned virtues…we will continue to fester in anger and division.”
At the same time, Obama on Saturday mocked Trump for making the White House look “like Saddam Hussein opened a Cheesecake Factory” and asked how long War Secretary Pete Hegseth “spends looking himself.”
Obama continues to be the most popular Democrat, a leader as the party prepares for what is poised to be a bruising 2028 presidential nomination primary process.
With two years until the next presidential election, Obama’s concentration on Ohio, in addition to Michigan and Georgia, emphasizes the importance of those states to Democrats’ 2026 battleground map before the Nov. 3 midterm elections, though the Peach State’s Senate seat appears to be less at risk compared to its Buckeye and Wolverine state counterparts.
Ohio’s Senate and gubernatorial races, for example, are within the margin of error, with Brown, on average, leading Sen. Jon Husted (R-OH), a two-year incumbent appointed to replace Vice President JD Vance in the chamber in 2025, by 3 percentage points.
Acton is similarly averaging a 4-point lead on Ramaswamy, with the Cook Political Report changing their race’s rating from “toss-up” to “lean Democratic” this week after the ad.
Ohio is also significant regarding the House, with two toss-up races in the lower chamber, one held by Rep. Max Miller (R-OH) and the other by Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-OH), as well as another two matchups that are only “lean Republican” – those of Reps. Mike Turner and (R-OH) Mike Carey (R-OH). Turner, for one, has been a congressman for 23 years.
Democrats need a net gain of four seats in the House and Senate to regain control of either chamber from January next year.
Obama’s appeal in Ohio, however, is not a given, with the former president winning the Buckeye State by 5 points in 2008 before experiencing success again in 2012 but with a smaller 3-point margin.
Trump then won Ohio by 8 points in 2016 and 2020 before growing his advantage in the state to 11 points in 2024 against former Vice President Kamala Harris.
Simultaneously, Obama expressed optimism on Sunday that Ohio was ready to reelect Democrats up and down the ballot because the state’s voters were “sick and tired of being sick and tired.”
“That’s why you have a chance to do in 10 days,” he said. “After two years of chaos, and cruelty, and corruption, and incompetence, you get a chance to say enough’s enough.”
Trump, who has been to Ohio or to the Ohio-Kentucky border twice in the last two weeks, will return to the state on Wednesday to try to reassert his popularity.
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After Ohio, Obama will campaign for the Democratic nominees in Michigan on Saturday evening, including Senate nominee Abdul El Sayed, who has condemned the former president in the past for his foreign wars and deportations as he struggles with black voters in the polls.
Obama will then travel to Atlanta next Friday to support the likes of Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA), who more and more is being considered a presidential prospect in his own right.
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[ H/T Washington Examiner ]
