Good morning and welcome to our live coverage of US politics. Donald Trump is travelling to Florida today to speak at another rally as midterm election day races nearer. The president will stump for gubernatorial candidate Byron Donalds.
Whether Donalds regards this as helpful remains to be seen after he removed mentions of the president from his website and has barely uttered his name during the race for governor. My colleague Richard Luscombe has more on that race: Last night, Trump further stoked the controversy over an attack ad by Vivek Ramaswamy, featuring the mother of his Democratic rival, Dr Amy Acton – telling supporters at a rally that he personally told the Republican candidate for Ohio governor to keep running the spot. Acton’s mother lost custody of her daughter at age 12 because her husband was charged with raping the young girl.
Trump told the rally in Iowa: “I said, ‘You’ve got to ride with it.’” Trump looks increasingly out of step with his own party over the ad after yet another Republican denounced the ad on Thursday. Iowa Republican Senate candidate Ashley Hinson broke with the president by denouncing the attack ad, saying: “I think it’s absolutely terrible, and I think they should take the ad down.”
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