WASHINGTON — With the U.S. midterm elections little more than a week away, former President Barack Obama took to the campaign trail for the first time this cycle, putting him in direct confrontation with President Donald Trump.
Trump cast an early ballot at a polling station in Palm Beach County, Florida, on the 24th alongside his wife, Melania. "The Democrats are the really corrupt ones," he said, adding that every Democratic figure is tied to the Jeffrey Epstein case. The counterattack came after a recent Fox News poll found that 88% of respondents were worried about government corruption, outpacing the 85% who cited high prices. At each rally, Trump has urged supporters to turn out by telling them to imagine that his own name is on the ballot.
Obama campaigned the same day for Democrats in Cleveland, Ohio, and Detroit, Michigan, delivering a blistering assessment of the administration. He called it "two years of chaos, cruelty, corruption and incompetence without precedent."
The midterms will fill 35 of the 100 Senate seats, all 435 House seats, and governorships and state legislative seats in 39 states and territories. Most forecasters expect Democrats to win the House. In the Senate, they see a slight Democratic edge, while pointing to "shy Trump" voters who do not show up in polling as a potential wild card.