President Donald Trump has put his cancelled Kansas and Iowa rallies back on the schedule for Sunday, November 1, reversing a Thursday decision that had replaced the in-person events with telephone rallies days before the November 3 midterm elections.
Why the reversal matters is that the two stops close Trump’s in-person midterm campaign in states Republicans usually win, and the brief cancellation had raised questions about his schedule and the state of the race. Both rallies will now take place on Sunday, after the Kansas event was moved from Saturday.
Back on after Thursday’s cancellation
Trump abruptly cancelled the two rallies on Thursday, October 29. The Republican National Committee confirmed that the Kansas appearance, planned for Saturday in Salina in support of Senator Roger Marshall, and the Iowa appearance, planned for Sunday in Dubuque in support of Representative Ashley Hinson, would be replaced by tele-rallies. USA Today reported that polling showed tight Senate races in two states that historically vote Republican.
Asked about the Kansas trip on Thursday, Trump told reporters he did not feel he had to go to Kansas, and he reacted angrily when a reporter later asked whether he had cancelled the trip because he was tired of travelling. The Straits Times, reporting AFP, noted that Trump had also complained of losing his voice earlier in the week.
One day later, the White House confirmed the in-person appearances were back on. “Rallies are BACK ON! President Trump loves his supporters, and in addition to nearly 20 tele-rallies, he will hold back-to-back rallies in Kansas and Iowa on Sunday,” the White House said, according to reports of the announcement. A source familiar with the planning said the dates had been rearranged to accommodate dozens of tele-rallies added to the president’s schedule.
Trump himself explained the change to reporters in the Oval Office on Friday, October 30. “I got a call from both states, Kansas and Iowa. We have a couple of races that are very important, and they said if you could go, it would be better than a tele-rally,” he said. “I said, ‘What about a tele-rally?’ But they asked me. So I’m going to go on Sunday.”
Speaking late on Friday to a crowd in Daytona, Florida, Trump insisted Republicans still had a chance in the midterms. “Typically, a president, whether he’s good or bad, Republican or Democrat, loses the midterms,” he told reporters earlier, as he hosted Stephen Hubbard, an American detainee recently freed by Russia, in the Oval Office. “I think we have a shot at doing well. Maybe very well, but you know, pretty well.” He told the Florida crowd the rallies were being held “for one very simple reason: to stop America-hating communists from taking over the United States Congress.”
A final-weekend push before Tuesday’s vote
Trump also repeated his promise to give every adult American citizen $5,000 if Republicans retain control of both chambers of Congress, according to AFP reporting of his Friday remarks. That promise is a campaign pledge, not an enacted policy, and it would depend on the election result and on Congress acting.
Republicans are defending a 53-47 majority in the Senate in Tuesday’s elections, while Democrats are seeking to capture at least one chamber of Congress and curb Trump’s legislative agenda during his final two years in office, the Straits Times reported. Thirty-five Senate seats are on the ballot, including special elections in Ohio and Florida, and the Sunday political talk shows feature Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Senator Bernie Sanders, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro and the candidates in Iowa’s open Senate race.
Trump has held more than two dozen rallies in the final stretch of the midterm campaign, according to USA Today, as he seeks to energise his base. The restored Kansas and Iowa stops, stacked with nearly 20 tele-rallies and the fresh batch of remote events, keep that closing blitz in motion rather than letting a midweek cancellation define it. He is also expected to spend most of the weekend at Mar-a-Lago and to hold several more tele-rallies on Monday.
What is confirmed is that the Kansas and Iowa rallies are back on for Sunday, that the tele-rally programme has been expanded around them, and that Americans vote on Tuesday. What is not confirmed is whether the final-weekend push will be enough for Republicans to hold both chambers, or whether Democrats will take at least one. Voters in Kansas and Iowa will hear the closing argument in person on Sunday either way, in two races Republicans had once expected to win comfortably.
