Trump heads to Iowa, Kansas with Senate control in balance
Democrats and many Republicans have framed the election as a referendum on Trump's policies.
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WASHINGTON/ANCHORAGE: President Donald Trump returns to the campaign trail on Sunday (Nov 1) with rallies in Iowa and Kansas, Republican-leaning Farm Belt states where his party is fighting to hold US Senate seats, two days before midterm elections that will decide control of Congress.
Trump, who spent Saturday at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida after weeks of campaigning across multiple states, won Iowa by double digits in 2024. But polls show Democrats tied with or leading Republicans in many of the state's races. And Trump's 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 of Representatives seats are on the ballot on Tuesday. Republicans hold narrow majorities in both chambers.
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Democrats and many Republicans have framed the election as a referendum on Trump's policies.
"His agenda, without any question, is on the ballot," Senator Tim Scott, a South Carolina Republican, told NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday.
Scott, the head of the Republican Senate campaign committee, predicted his party would keep its majority in the chamber.
If Democrats take control of the House or Senate, they could block Trump's legislative agenda for his final two years in office and launch investigations of an administration that has so far faced largely compliant Republican majorities. The White House has been preparing to implement portions of Trump's agenda without the aid of Congress.
Troy Jackson, a Maine Democrat challenging incumbent Republican Senator Susan Collins in a close race, told MS Now on Sunday that Democrats can "get Congress back to work to their job and have their oversight" should they win control.
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.
MICHIGAN RIFT
In Michigan, which has one of the highest-profile Senate races in this year's midterms, a split widened between Democratic nominee Abdul El-Sayed and US Representative Haley Stevens, the candidate he defeated in the party's primary.
A photo posted on social media by a campaign spokesperson of El-Sayed's Republican opponent, Mike Rogers, showed Stevens next to Rogers at a Detroit church on Sunday morning.
Shortly after the Rogers campaign released the photo, Stevens publicly endorsed Rogers in her own social media post.
The gesture of support by Stevens for Rogers came on a day when she had been scheduled to appear with El-Sayed in an event billed as a show of party unity. But a rift between the two Democrats burst into public view ahead of the event after Stevens called on El-Sayed to condemn an outside group's ad that she said blames Israel for high grocery prices.
Stevens' office did not immediately return a request for comment.
El-Sayed's campaign asked Stevens to skip his events through Election Day so as "not to distract from the central issues of the campaign," a person familiar with the matter said.
"It's certainly unhelpful to the El-Sayed campaign to have continued visible division within the party just before Election Day," said Matt Grossmann, a political scientist at Michigan State University.
Polls indicate that El-Sayed has largely consolidated Democratic support.
LEGAL FIGHTS
Senate control could come down to a handful of states, including Alaska, where polls show incumbent Senator Dan S Sullivan, a Republican, in a tight race with Democrat Mary Peltola.
Sullivan on Sunday said he would accept the results of Tuesday's election even as the Trump administration presses a criminal investigation into the presence of another challenger named Daniel J Sullivan Jr on the ballot.
The US Justice Department has asked a federal court to prevent the certification of Alaska's vote if the incumbent senator loses narrowly. Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy, a Republican, has suggested he may not certify a victory by Peltola after the New York Times reported her campaign was involved in recruiting Daniel J Sullivan Jr into the race.
Although the senator said he would accept the election result, he declined to say whether he would support efforts to refuse certifying it if he lost. He joined his party colleagues in accusing the other Sullivan of trying to confuse voters with his similar name.
"They got the decoy guy on the ballot," the senator told CNN's "State of the Union" program. "I'm sure I'm going to lose a lot of votes to that trickery. So what I say to Alaskans is, 'Don't let them get away with the tricks.'"
Peltola and the campaign committee have denied involvement, and Sullivan Jr. has denied coordinating with Peltola's campaign.
Separately, the Trump administration signaled it would likely ask the US Supreme Court to take up its legal battle with California over alleged noncitizen voting.
A federal judge 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. A federal appeals court has twice rejected the Justice Department's arguments.
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