Trump Heads to Iowa and Kansas for Rallies Before Midterms as Early Voting Passes 52 Million
President Donald Trump returns to the campaign trail Sunday with rallies in Iowa and Kansas, two Republican-leaning Farm Belt states where his party is fighting to hold Senate seats, two days before midterm elections that will decide control of Congress — with a record 52 million ballots already cast and his rural approval at a new low of 45 percent.
President Donald Trump returns to the campaign trail on Sunday with rallies in Iowa and Kansas, Republican-leaning Farm Belt states where his party is fighting to hold U.S. Senate seats, two days before midterm elections that will decide control of Congress, according to the Reuters account published Sunday, read in full this cycle. Trump, who spent Saturday at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida after weeks of campaigning across multiple states, won Iowa by double digits in 2024 — but polls show Democrats tied with or leading Republicans in many of the state's races, and Trump's approval among rural Americans fell to a new low of 45 percent in October, according to Reuters/Ipsos polling. Kansas, which last elected a Democratic senator in 1932, is also facing an unexpectedly close race, per Reuters.
The numbers already on the board are historic. More than 52 million Americans have already voted in person or by mail, according to the University of Florida's Election Lab — a record for a midterm, up from nearly 46 million who voted before Election Day in 2022, per Reuters. Thirty-five Senate seats and all 435 House seats are on the ballot on Tuesday; Republicans hold a 53-47 Senate majority and a narrow edge in the House (218-214, per the USA Today live file read this cycle), and losing either chamber would let Democrats block Trump's agenda for his final two years and launch investigations, per Reuters. The campaign could also be the most expensive ever, at a projected $11.6 billion, compared with $11.2 billion in the 2024 presidential cycle, according to AdImpact figures carried in the USA Today file.
The president campaigns under a polling cloud his party cannot ignore. Trump's approval rating stands at 36 percent, with 61 percent disapproving, according to the New York Times poll tracker cited in USA Today's Sunday live file — the lowest pre-midterm favorability for any president in the last 80 years, since Harry Truman, per the Times' chief political analyst Nate Cohn as carried there; just under three in 10 likely voters support how the president has managed the cost of living, per the Times/Siena final national poll. As Trump campaigns, his administration is also pressing a criminal investigation in Alaska's pivotal Senate race and said Saturday it would likely take its fight over thousands of California mail ballots to the Supreme Court, per Reuters. Election Day is Tuesday, November 3.
