Trump Kansas Rally: 'Get Out and Vote' in Salina on the Final Sunday Before the Midterms
President Donald Trump closed his Sunday swing in Salina, Kansas, asking Kansans to pretend he is on the ballot and to 'get out and vote' — the second stop of a two-state day in Farm Belt states where Republicans are fighting to hold Senate seats, with Kansas's race unexpectedly close.
President Donald Trump ended his final Sunday of the midterm campaign in Kansas. Speaking to rallygoers in Salina on Sunday evening, Trump talked about crowd size, repeated his complaint that the media does not properly report how many people attend his rallies, and asked Kansans to pretend he is on the ballot, according to the USA Today midterm live file's account of the rally (09:47 PM ET entry, reported with the Topeka Capital-Journal). His closing request was turnout itself: voters, he said, have 'to do is one thing: get out and vote because if you do, we're going to have tremendous success.' Trump won Kansas in all three of the presidential elections in which he appeared on its ballot, the file noted.
The Kansas stop was the second of two Sunday rallies in states Republicans once counted as safe. Trump campaigned earlier Sunday in Dubuque, Iowa, and moved on to Kansas the same evening, per the live file; Reuters reported the two-state swing targeted Senate seats his party is fighting to hold two days before elections that decide control of Congress. Kansas last elected a Democratic senator in 1932, but its race is unexpectedly close: a Washington Post poll released Friday found Democrat Adam Hamilton ahead of Republican Sen. Roger Marshall 52 percent to 43 percent among likely voters, and a CNN poll found a narrower four-point Hamilton lead, within its margin of error, per USA Today's account of the restored rallies. Reuters/Ipsos polling put Trump's approval among rural Americans at a new low of 45 percent in October, Reuters reported.
Thirty-five Senate seats and all 435 House seats are on Tuesday's ballot; Republicans hold a 53-47 Senate majority and a narrow edge in the House, per Reuters. More than 52 million Americans had already voted in person or by mail by Sunday, a midterm record, according to the University of Florida's Election Lab figures carried by Reuters. Trump's closing argument continues Monday at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, the closing-remarks appearance this station filed earlier Sunday (SQ-20261101-060), hours before polls open.
