President Donald Trump returned to the campaign trail on Sunday, November 1, with back-to-back rallies in Dubuque, Iowa, in the afternoon and Salina, Kansas, later in the day, two days before midterm elections that will decide control of Congress. The trips restore two stops that Republicans abruptly canceled on Thursday, October 29, replacing them with tele-rallies, before reversing course less than 24 hours later.
"We're going to Iowa first, then Kansas second. I think we're going to do very well," Trump said before departing, after telling reporters in the Oval Office on Friday that Republicans in both states had asked him to come in person. "We have a couple of races that are very important, and they said if you could go, it would be better than a tele-rally."
Two Senate seats Republicans cannot afford to lose
In Kansas, incumbent Republican Senator Roger Marshall faces Democratic challenger Adam Hamilton, a prominent pastor, in a state that last elected a Democratic senator in 1932. A Washington Post poll released Friday found Hamilton ahead 52%-43% among likely voters, while a CNN poll found a narrower 4-point Hamilton lead, within the margin of error. An Emerson College poll conducted October 26-28 had Hamilton at 49% and Marshall at 45%.
In Iowa, Republican Representative Ashley Hinson is running against Democratic state Representative Josh Turek for the seat being vacated by retiring Senator Joni Ernst. Hinson leads by less than one percentage point in the Real Clear Politics average. Trump won Iowa by double digits in 2024, and his approval among rural Americans fell to a new low of 45% in October, according to Reuters/Ipsos polling.
All 435 House seats and 35 Senate seats are on the ballot on Tuesday, November 3. Republicans hold a 53-47 Senate majority and a narrow House edge; losing either chamber would let Democrats block Trump's agenda for his final two years and launch investigations of an administration that has so far faced largely compliant Republican majorities.
A record early vote — and a promise to accept the result in Alaska
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 and up from nearly 46 million before Election Day in 2022.
In Alaska, where polls show incumbent Republican Senator Dan Sullivan in a tight race with Democrat Mary Peltola, Sullivan said on Sunday he would accept Tuesday's results even as the Trump administration presses a criminal investigation into the presence of another challenger named Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. on the ballot.
In Michigan, another closely watched Senate race, a split widened between Democratic nominee Abdul El-Sayed and Representative Haley Stevens, the candidate he defeated in the primary: a photo posted by a campaign spokesperson showed Stevens next to El-Sayed's Republican opponent, Mike Rogers, at a Detroit church on Sunday morning.
Trump spent Saturday at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida after weeks of campaigning across multiple states, holding more than two dozen rallies in the homestretch, mostly in red states. Sunday's schedule also lists nearly 20 tele-rallies for Republican candidates.
Fuentes: Al Jazeera, 1 de noviembre de 2026; Reuters vía Straits Times y SRN News, 1 de noviembre de 2026; USA Today, 30 de octubre de 2026; The National, 1 de noviembre de 2026.