Trump Heads to Iowa and Kansas for Sunday Rallies as Republicans Fight to Hold Farm Belt Senate Seats
The president spent Saturday at Mar-a-Lago and returns to the trail Sunday in two Republican-leaning states that have tightened: polls show Democrats tied or ahead in many Iowa races, his approval among rural Americans hit a new October low of 45%, and Kansas faces its closest Senate race in generations.
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 the midterms decide control of Congress, Reuters reported in a file opened and read directly by the desk this run. Trump spent Saturday at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida after weeks of campaigning across multiple states.
Neither state was supposed to be this close. Trump 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% in October, according to Reuters/Ipsos polling. Kansas, which last elected a Democratic senator in 1932, is also facing an unexpectedly close race.
The backdrop is a turnout record already banked. 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. Florida's own share of that record is part of the count, and Duval County's early sites closed Sunday with more than 230,000 ballots cast (the desk's SQ-20261101-080).
What the rallies are defending is narrow: 35 Senate seats and all 435 House seats are on Tuesday's ballot, Republicans hold a 53-47 Senate majority and a narrow House edge, and losing either chamber would let Democrats block the president's agenda for his final two years and open investigations of the administration, Reuters reported. The same Reuters file's legal-fights reporting - the California mail-ballot case and the Alaska investigation - is covered in the desk's own files SQ-20261102-008 and SQ-20261101-065 and is not re-reported here.
