US President Donald Trump has restored cancelled campaign rallies in the states of Iowa and Kansas days before the midterm elections, a White House official says.
“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 official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The reversal comes after Trump told reporters on Thursday he did not “feel like I have to go to Kansas,” where Republican Senator Roger Marshall faces an unexpectedly competitive race against Democrat Adam Hamilton.
“He is doing very well. We are going to have a strong Tuesday night,” Trump said at the time.
The White House official said the rallies had been rearranged to accommodate the tele-rallies recently added to Trump’s schedule ahead of the elections on Tuesday.
On Friday, the Republican president will campaign in Florida, hoping to galvanise his supporters in a state he won handily in 2024 but where early voting has tilted toward Democrats.
It will be his latest stop in a state Republicans usually expect to win, following campaign events earlier this week in Mississippi and South Carolina.
Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic Senate candidate in Michigan who is in a tight race against Republican Mike Rogers, had said on Thursday night – after news emerged that the rallies would be cancelled – that the president’s goal of trying to gin up Republican voters had backfired and he had “given up”.
“He’s an old man, he’s a loser,” El-Sayed said.
“He now understands that he has fully lost the midterms for his party.”
Across the United States, more than 43 million people had already voted early in person or returned mail ballots by Friday – nearly 10 million more than in 2022.
In US states that provide information on voters’ party affiliation, about 6.8 million Democrats and 5.2 million Republicans have cast ballots early.
Those figures do not account for all early voters country-wide or indicate which candidates received their votes.
with AP
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