President Donald Trump spent Sunday in Kansas and Iowa, trying to turn the final weekend before Election Day into a closing argument for Republicans who were already fighting to hold competitive ground. He told crowds in Salina and Dubuque that he would help elect "America first" Republicans up and down the line, then looked ahead to a Monday appearance in Washington that was set to be his final pitch of the midterm campaign.
By the time Trump was onstage, more than 54 million votes had already been cast, a sign that the race was no longer waiting for his message to begin. He had spent since Oct. 1 crisscrossing the country and logging more than two-dozen rallies in 19 states, a pace that showed how much he had turned the midterms into a test of his own political grip as much as a fight over the House and the Senate.
Trump arrived late in Kansas, where Air Force One made a flyover before landing for an outdoor rally, and he told the crowd, "This is our last stop. We're closing it down tonight." The speech went on for two hours, but hundreds of people began leaving in the middle of his nearly 90-minute stretch in rural central Kansas, a quiet reminder that even a familiar Trump rally can fray at the edges when the campaign reaches its last stretch.
The contrast was sharper because Republicans in Iowa and Kansas were not marching into easy wins. They were fending off robust Democratic challenges, and the midterm elections had become a referendum on Trump's White House second term. That made his sweeping promise sound larger than the map in front of him, with the GOP in a defensive posture even as he predicted momentum that would carry "America first" candidates through the line.
Michigan added another complication for Democrats. Haley Stevens appeared with Republican Mike Rogers at a church service and later endorsed his campaign for the United States Senate, saying her invitation to a Democratic event was rescinded and that she was told she was no longer welcome in the campaign. She said Rogers was right to say that to her, then added that she was endorsing him anyway, a break that underscored how Democrats were not only fighting Republicans but also managing their own fractures as the final votes were still being cast.
Trump is set to close his campaign push Monday in Washington at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, but the question now is less whether he can still draw a crowd than whether the crowds can move what has already become a heavily voted-on election. With more than 54 million ballots already in, his last appearance will arrive after the race has been shaped, not before it.
