Ohio GOP Senate candidate in trouble as voters 'regret' Trump support

An Ohio Republican and lawmaker is feeling the political heat as he is slammed by voters who supported President Donald Trump — and blame him for being a loyal Trump supporter.

"Some of the attacks against [Sen. Jon] Husted (R-OH) appear to be working," reported The New York Times' Emily Davies on Monday about the tight reelection campaign facing the Republican senator. "Ben Meddles, 55, a firefighter in central Ohio, said he regretted voting for Mr. Trump, and that in turn was affecting his choice for Senate."

Davies quoted Meddles as saying, “You go in to vote and you feel good. And then sometimes, six months to a year later, you’re sorry for the way you voted.”

Meddles is "frustrated with the president for starting a war with Iran, imposing tariffs on Canada and spending so much time trying to take control of Greenland, which Mr. Meddles dismissed as 'showboating,'" according to Davies. "It all felt like a distraction, he said, from the president’s failure to deliver his signature campaign promise: economic relief at home. That promise, Mr. Meddles said, was why he had cast three ballots for Mr. Trump over the last decade."

In addition to losing voters because of his support for the Iran war, Husted is controversial in Ohio because of his outspoken backing of data centers. As lieutenant governor, Husted worked hard to cultivate data center construction by supporting tax breaks for the facilities.

Even some voters who still like Trump are souring on Husted.

"At the fair, Ms. Grenko had spent nearly $7 per gallon on diesel to fill up the five trucks she needed to cart her ponies to the event," Davies wrote. "That cost had been so crippling, she said, that she swapped her favorite mac-and-cheese brand, Kraft, for the Great Value version sold at Walmart. She also started to buy off-brand coffee creamer and toilet paper, and to eat more rice each week to fill up."

Davies continued, "In some ways, Ms. Grenko embodied both the opportunities and the challenges facing Mr. Husted. A loyal Trump Republican who gets her news exclusively from Fox, Ms. Grenko said she didn’t mind making those sacrifices if Mr. Trump was doing what he thought was best for the country. But her willingness to give up comforts for Mr. Trump does not mean she will vote for Mr. Husted, given how little she knows about him."

“I want him to step out, step up and say, ‘OK, this is what I think,’” Grenko told Davies about Husted. "Like Trump. Trump’s not afraid to say what he stands for.”

Considering that Ohio voted for Trump on all three occasions he ran for president, analysts have characterized Husted's struggles as emblematic of the larger issues facing the Republican Party in the 2026 midterm elections.

"How badly are things going for Republicans in what, for more than a decade, has been the reliably red state of Ohio?" Bloomberg News opinion columnist Erika D. Smith wrote earlier in September. "Just ask Jon Husted. The party's nominee for the U.S. Senate spent part of last week at the 'Trump-a-palooza' convention in Dallas, desperately trying to cast President Donald Trump's tax cuts for the wealthy as a fix for the affordability crisis. Then, Husted spent the weekend distancing himself from his now-former political director after it was revealed that he had promoted both Nazi imagery and songs tied to White supremacy online."