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Friday, October 30, 2026
Donald Trump canceled weekend plans to campaign in both Iowa and Kansas, where hotly contested Senate races could determine Congressional majority. Just hours before the announcement, a new poll showed Democratic candidate Adam Hamilton up four points over incumbent Roger Marshall in a state that hasn’t elected a Democratic senator since 1932. The White House said Trump will continue with “tele-rallies,” a fancy word for phone calls, but the clear narrative emerging is that Trump’s 32-day campaign rally tour, designed to lift GOP candidates, has backfired so badly that it was canceled early. Vice President JD Vance muffed a Fox News town hall question on affordability, and Democratic hijinks in the Alaska Senate race may cost them the seat, as the Republican governor has threatened to withhold certification.
01. Trump’s Rally Tour Backfires on His Own Candidates as He Cancels Kansas and Iowa Four Days Out
[Gaining Traction]. Trump told voters to pretend he’s on the ballot. After 25 rallies in 19 states, he’s phoning it in during the last weekend.
Trump opened his rally tour in Oklahoma on Oct. 1 and gave a clear instruction for voters: pretend he’s on the ballot. Twenty-five rallies and 19 states later, the Senate map is much bluer than when he started. Fox News power rankings moved Ohio from toss-up to lean Democrat this week and deep red South Carolina from lean Republican to toss-up. CNN’s new polls have Republicans trailing in Michigan, Kansas, and Texas, three states he visited multiple times.
Trump scrapped his last two stops, Salina, Kansas, for Senator Roger Marshall, and Dubuque, Iowa, for Ashley Hinson, and swapped them for phone-in rallies in at least 19 states. He then explained how Marshall “is doing very well.” When a Reuters reporter asked whether he was sick of traveling, Trump called him “sick” and “disgusting” and said, “You look like hell.”
Republicans talking to reporters aren’t backing him up. A top Republican official told CNN’s Jeff Zeleny, “Thank God he hasn’t moved the needle anywhere.” The chairwoman of the Kansas Republican Party told CNN she urged the RNC to take the race seriously months ago and “People laughed in my face.” Adam Hamilton, the Democrat, told a Wichita station that “maybe the president has given up on Roger Marshall.” Kalshi moved Hamilton from 44 cents to 49.
Senator Tim Scott runs the Republican Senate campaign arm and appeared on Fox & Friends Friday morning and said, “Good news for America, President Trump is on the ballot.” Fox News gave the cancellations one package on Special Report and one sentence in two hours of Fox & Friends, and never aired the Reuters exchange Thursday night or Friday morning. CNN and MS NOW led with it.
TAKEAWAY: It’s impossible to know this definitively, but Trump’s rally tour appears to have done more harm than good with candidates he rallied with. And questionable polling data isn’t the best evidence of that argument; his cutting the tour short is.