Trump Campaigns in Iowa and Kansas on Final Sunday Before Tuesday’s Midterms

President Donald Trump returns to the campaign trail on Sunday with rallies in Iowa and Kansas, two Republican-leaning Farm Belt states where his party is fighting to hold Senate seats, two days before midterm elections that will decide control of Congress.

Trump spent Saturday at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida after weeks of campaigning across several states, according to Reuters. He won Iowa by double digits in 2024, but polls now show Democrats tied with or leading Republicans in many of the state’s races, and his approval among rural Americans fell to a new low of 45 percent in October, according to Reuters/Ipsos polling. Kansas, which last elected a Democratic senator in 1932, is also facing an unexpectedly close race.

Thirty-five Senate seats and all 435 House seats are on the ballot on Tuesday. Republicans hold a 53-47 Senate majority and a 218-214 House majority. Losing either chamber would let Democrats block the president’s agenda for his final two years in office and open investigations of an administration that has so far faced largely compliant Republican majorities, Reuters reported.

Polls show tight races and a record early vote

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 who voted before Election Day in 2022.

Polling averages show Democrats ahead in Senate races in Texas, Michigan and Maine, but each lead sits within or near the margin of error, according to RealClearPolitics averages cited by USA TODAY on Sunday. In Texas, Democratic state Rep. James Talarico leads Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton by 1.4 percentage points. In Michigan, Democratic nominee Abdul El-Sayed leads former Rep. Mike Rogers by 3.5 points. In Maine, five-term Republican Sen. Susan Collins trails Democrat Troy Jackson by 1.7 points.

Trump’s national standing has slipped to 36 percent approval against 61 percent disapproval, according to the New York Times poll tracker cited by USA TODAY, the lowest for any president heading into a midterm election in the last 80 years. The Times’ final national poll, conducted with Siena University, found that just under three in 10 likely voters support how the president has managed the cost of living, and more than four in 10 Republicans dislike his handling of fuel costs.

The Cook Political Report shifted more than a dozen congressional races toward Democrats on October 30, USA TODAY reported. Its latest forecast puts more than 220 House races in the Democratic column; Democrats need 218 seats to win the majority. The campaign as a whole is projected to cost $11.6 billion, which would pass the $11.2 billion spent in the 2024 presidential cycle, according to AdImpact, which tracks broadcast advertising.

Legal fights run beside the rallies

As Trump campaigns, his administration is pressing a criminal investigation in Alaska’s Senate race and said on Saturday it would likely take its fight over thousands of California mail ballots to the Supreme Court, Reuters reported.

A federal judge earlier in the week rejected the Justice Department’s request to block California from counting mail ballots from more than 20,000 registered voters it alleges are likely noncitizens, after a federal appeals court denied an earlier emergency request. California has said the state’s safeguards against noncitizen voting, which is illegal, are in place. In Alaska, federal prosecutors are investigating whether aides to Democratic challenger Mary Peltola helped recruit a retired schoolteacher, Daniel J. Sullivan Jr., to run because he shares a name with Republican incumbent Sen. Dan S. Sullivan. Peltola and the campaign committee have denied involvement, and Sullivan Jr. has denied coordinating with Peltola’s campaign.

On Sunday, Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan said he will accept the results of the Alaska race, USA TODAY reported, after CNN asked him whether he would accept the results only if he won. “No, I’m going to accept the election results,” he replied.

Reporting based on coverage by Reuters and USA TODAY.