Final Rallies Before the Midterm Elections: Trump Closes at the Reflecting Pool as Talarico and Hamilton Make Their Last Appeals
Election eve brought the campaign to its last stages Monday: President Donald Trump chose a closing speech at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, Democratic Senate candidates James Talarico in Texas and Adam Hamilton in Kansas capped their get-out-the-vote pushes, and a record 54 million Americans had already voted.
Both parties staged their final get-out-the-vote rallies on Monday, November 2, the eve of the midterm elections, in wire coverage read by the desk this cycle. For his closing argument, President Donald Trump chose a speech in Washington at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, after headlining final Republican rallies in Iowa and Kansas on Sunday — states his party would normally win comfortably. 'We're going to win,' he said on Sunday, in the wire account.
Democrats teed up closing rallies of their own, led by Senate candidates James Talarico in Texas and Adam Hamilton in Kansas, capping what the wire described as a campaign of exceptional tension. The polls behind the final day point the same direction with different confidence: the final New York Times/Siena poll, released Sunday evening, showed Democratic candidates leading in all seven of the most competitive Senate races, with five of the seven leads inside the margin of error, and an NBC News poll released Sunday showed 60 percent of respondents disapproving of the president's performance, particularly over high prices.
Whatever Monday's stages produce, an enormous share of the verdict is already cast: a record 54 million Americans had voted early before Election Day, according to the University of Florida's Election Lab figures carried in the coverage. Polls open Tuesday from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. in Texas, where the Senate race between Talarico and Attorney General Ken Paxton is one of the seven the Siena poll measured — and one of the five inside the error margin.
