Trump Closes His Midterm Campaign in Iowa and Kansas on Sunday, With Senate Control on the Line
The president's final stops are not in swing-state suburbs but in two Farm Belt states his party usually banks — because this year, Republicans are fighting to hold Senate seats in both, two days before voters decide control of Congress.
President Donald Trump returned to the campaign trail on Sunday for rallies in Iowa and Kansas, closing a midterm blitz of more than two dozen rallies in the homestretch, Reuters reported — in two Republican-leaning Farm Belt states where his party is fighting to hold Senate seats, two days before elections that will decide control of Congress.
The choice of map tells the story of the race. Trump won Iowa by double digits in 2024, and Kansas last elected a Democratic senator in 1932. Both are on defense this year: in Iowa, Rep. Ashley Hinson is running for the seat being vacated by retiring Sen. Joni Ernst — the Dubuque rally is hers — and in Kansas, Sen. Roger Marshall's race in Salina has drawn an unexpectedly close challenge. The rallies themselves were a late reversal: canceled on Oct. 29 in favor of tele-rallies, then restored within a day after Republican officials in both states asked the president to come in person, USA TODAY reported.
Tuesday's stakes are total: 35 Senate seats and all 435 House seats are on the ballot, and Republicans hold narrow majorities in both chambers — 53 to 47 in the Senate. A defense tour through Iowa and Kansas in the final 48 hours is what a party does when the map it counts on can no longer be counted on.
For New York, the read-across is turnout: the same final-weekend surge that produced a midterm-record early vote nationally is what both parties are now chasing in person. Polls in New York are closed for early voting after today; the next votes cast anywhere in the country are the ones that decide whether Sunday's rallies worked.
