WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump is closing out the final days of a turbulent midterm campaign with rallies in two states he has handily won in the past while Democrats risk fracturing in Michigan, complicating their effort to retake the Senate.
Trump's first stop is scheduled for Sunday afternoon in Dubuque, Iowa, where Republicans are battling to hold onto a critical Senate seat along with the governor's office. The 2nd Congressional District, which includes Dubuque, has also become competitive as the GOP works to protect its fragile majority in the House.
Trump plans to close out the last weekend of campaigning before Election Day on Tuesday with a visit to Salina, Kansas. Adam Hamilton is mounting a robust bid to become the first Kansas Democrat to win a Senate seat in 94 years.
With more than 52 million votes already cast, the trips reflect the GOP's defensive posture as the elections become a referendum on Trump's White House second term.
They are a reminder of how starkly the political environment has changed since Trump's last campaign. In 2024, he worked to flip states that had previously backed Democrat Joe Biden in 2020. This year, Trump has focused largely on states he has dominated before as voters, including previous supporters, question the economic fallout of his decision to impose tariffs and launch the war in Iran.
While those dynamics have helped Democrats in their bid to regain congressional majorities, they face challenges of their own.
In Michigan, the Democratic nominee for a critical open Senate seat, Abdul El-Sayed, is spending the final days of the campaign in an increasingly public feud with one of his primary opponents, Rep. Haley Stevens, threatening to divide the party heading into the election.
Stevens was initially set to join El-Sayed and Rep. Jim Clyburn of South Carolina at a church event. Instead, she appeared with Republican Mike Rogers at a separate service. She has criticized El-Sayed as being insufficiently supportive of Israel. Her fiance said last week he was voting for Rogers, claiming El-Sayed had not done enough to address concerns of the Jewish community.
Debbie Dingell, the Michigan congresswoman who helped organize the planned joint appearance in hopes of bringing together Democrats in the final days before Tuesday's vote, said she asked Stevens not to attend and that Stevens told her she would abide by that.
Earlier on Sunday, Sen. Bernie Sanders, a top supporter of El-Sayed, dismissed concerns that Democrats would fracture.
“Haley Stevens lost a very, very close primary. I can understand being upset about that,” the Vermont independent said on CBS' “Face the Nation.” “But from what I can see, all over the state, people are standing up, they’re gonna stand with Abdul.”
Michigan plays a key role in the Democratic effort to retake control of the Senate. If they don't keep that seat on Tuesday, they would face additional pressure to win races in deeper Republican territory such as Texas, Kansas, Ohio or Iowa.
Midterms test Trump's strength in GOP
The campaign's closing stretch has largely become a test of Trump’s enduring strength in a Republican Party he reshaped in his image a decade ago.
The more than two dozen rallies he held in October were designed to energize the most loyal voters to show up for Republicans one more time. But that effort was occasionally overshadowed by Trump's meandering asides and sometimes graphic descriptions of the physique of the male politicians he was supporting.
As fears of steep Republican losses grow, Trump paused the rallies on Saturday and spent the evening at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida at a jungle-themed Halloween party, where he bragged about the wealth of his guests and dismissed concerns about the country's direction.
“The country's has never done better,” he said.
Outgoing Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., raised concerns on Sunday that the president's policies, particularly tariffs, could weigh down the GOP.
“Tariffs are not popular here in the Midwest,” he told CNN's “State of the Union.” “I tried telling the president that.”
Bacon predicted “there will be a debate in the party” about its future if there are significant losses this week.
Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina was more optimistic. The chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee said he was confident Republicans would keep the Senate and embraced Trump's role in the campaign.
“There's no doubt that President Trump has said himself that the midterm election is about him," he told NBC's “Meet the Press.” “His agenda, without any question, is on the ballot.”
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Associated Press writers Corey Williams in Detroit and Will Weissert and Joey Cappelletti contributed to this report.
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