Trump's Iowa and Kansas Rallies Are Back On for Sunday After He Canceled Them on Thursday
The Salina and Dubuque rallies were scrapped Thursday in favor of tele-rallies, then restored Friday after Republicans in both states asked him to come in person - with polls showing a Democrat leading in Kansas and a dead heat in Iowa.
WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump's Sunday rallies in Iowa and Kansas almost did not happen. The president abruptly canceled the weekend visits on Thursday, Oct. 29, then put them back on the schedule Friday after Republicans in both states called and asked him to come in person, USA TODAY reported.
The rallies - in Salina, Kansas, for Sen. Roger Marshall, and in Dubuque, Iowa, for Rep. Ashley Hinson, who is running for the Senate - were rearranged, a source familiar with the plans told the paper, to accommodate dozens of tele-rallies the president is planning for Republican candidates in the final days of the campaign. The Salina rally was originally scheduled for Saturday, Oct. 31; the Dubuque rally keeps its Sunday date. Trump addressed the whipsaw himself in the Oval Office on Friday: "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," he said. "And I tried to talk them out of that. I said, 'What about a tele-rally?' But they asked me. So I'm going to go on Sunday." When he first scrapped the Kansas trip, the move had ignited speculation that Trump and the Republicans had given up on the state.
The polls explain why both states asked. In Kansas, which last elected a Democratic senator in 1932 and which Trump carried by 16 percentage points in 2024, multiple surveys suggest Democratic nominee Adam Hamilton has opened a lead over Marshall: a Washington Post poll released Friday found Hamilton ahead 52 percent to 43 percent among likely voters, while a CNN poll found a narrower 4-point Hamilton lead, within that survey's margin of error. In Iowa, which Trump carried by 13 points in 2024, Hinson leads Democratic nominee Josh Turek by less than 1 percentage point in a Real Clear Politics average of recent polls.
The restored rallies extend a homestretch of more than two dozen Trump rallies, most of them in states his party expected to hold - and in many of which, polls show, his own popularity is underwater, making an appearance a calculated risk for the candidates beside him. His voice has turned hoarse in recent days on the near-nightly schedule, which took him to Daytona Beach, Florida, on Friday. Sunday's crowds in Salina and Dubuque will be the last full rallies of the campaign before Tuesday's vote.
