Three Protests Interrupt Trump’s South Carolina Rally

Three protests interrupted President Donald Trump’s campaign rally in Rock Hill, South Carolina, on Thursday, Oct. 29, 2026. Halfway through his speech, a man left with an escort. Trump joked, “Say hi to your mom.” The event supported Senate candidate Darline Graham, whom the article described as the sister of late MAGA Senator Lindsey Graham.

At a rally in Chillicothe, Ohio, on Oct. 28, a protester shouted, “shove your ballroom up your fat a--.” The outburst added to a string of disruptions at Trump rallies during his midterm campaign. The source doesn’t say what the three South Carolina protesters said or what prompted them to act.

A campaign built around the crowd

The Rock Hill venue had empty seats at the back, with open spaces visible as cameras panned across it. Recent events in Mississippi, Ohio and Alabama also drew unfilled seats, and supporters left some rallies before Trump finished speaking. Trump, meanwhile, has kept claiming he is “drawing the BIGGEST CROWDS at Trump Rallies in the history of Midterm Elections.” The stage tells one story of the campaign. The camera’s view of empty space tells another.

A Reuters photo caption said Trump kissed Graham at the event. The rally put a national campaign figure beside a Senate candidate as voters approached the midterms, while interruptions and attendance became part of the campaign story itself.

Trump is moving away from in-person rallies toward virtual campaign events, a shift the White House confirmed. A White House official told the Daily Beast, “President Trump will continue connecting directly with Americans nationwide through more than 20 telerallies before Election Day. These events give him the opportunity to highlight his accomplishments and expand his reach across the country.” The White House didn’t explain why Trump was shifting formats or say whether other scheduled events, including a rally in Iowa on Sunday, had been canceled.

The schedule changes—and the explanations

Trump canceled a planned Saturday rally in Kansas, where he had expected to campaign for Sen. Roger Marshall, and said he’d hold an in-person event in Florida on Friday. Trump said he wasn’t going to Kansas because Marshall was doing well. Marshall has made little effort to distance himself from Trump and the MAGA movement ahead of the midterms.

The cancellation stirred speculation that Trump was “throwing in the towel” for Marshall, described as being in a surprisingly tight race against pastor Adam Hamilton in a state that had been ruby red for over a half-century. Others said Republicans would win Kansas and didn’t need a second rally. Mark Williams, former chief of staff for former Congressman Mike Conaway, told CNN, “I don't know that he needs to go to Kansas.”

Kansas GOP Chair Danedri Herbert said the Republican National Committee told her the rally was canceled and that more information would follow. “That's all they told me: that it was canceled and we'd get more information,” Herbert told the Kansas City Star on Thursday. “They are going to do a series of tele-rallies, but I don't have any information about those.” The party apparatus canceled the event, but its local chair had no further details.

Crowds, health, and the campaign machine

On Friday afternoon, Trump rejected suggestions that he was sick of travel and criticized Reuters White House reporter Jacob Bogage, who had asked about it. “You are a sick guy, Reuters is terrible,” Trump said. “I'm not going to Kansas because he's doing very well. Tomorrow I'm going to Florida... You've been following me for two weeks, I feel perfect. You are disgusting. Put yourself in shape, you look like hell.” The article said Trump had also lashed out at Bogage on Thursday.

The shift toward virtual events renewed speculation about the health of the 80-year-old president, whether he was giving up on certain races, and his focus on crowd sizes. Trump has acknowledged that his campaign schedule was physically demanding, including one occasion when he didn’t get back to the White House until 4 a.m. after campaigning across the country. This week he said, “When God made vocal cords, he didn't make them for doing 25 or 26 of these in a period of 10 days.”

The article also said Trump had chronic venous insufficiency that led to swollen ankles, bruised hands and trouble sleeping. People again noticed his swollen ankles during a meeting with Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa this year. After Trump returned to Joint Base Andrews on Monday night from a rally in Mississippi, observers said he looked sweaty and exhausted despite the crisp fall weather.

Nate Silver, described as one of the few pollsters to predict a Trump win in 2016, said early voting trends showed Democrats turning out in much larger numbers than Republicans. “So they need to get their voters to the polls to take advantage of the red territory in the map,” Silver said on the Shane Smith Has Questions Podcast. Pollsters also warned that the Republican Party could be headed toward disaster on Election Day.

Hamilton is the senior pastor of the United Methodist Church of the Resurrection and hopes to break Kansas’s record of not electing a Democrat to the Senate since 1932. Trump’s current rallies are smaller than those in his heyday, when tens of thousands packed large stadiums across the country to hear him speak. The campaign keeps measuring its reach in crowds, but protesters, departing supporters and empty seats keep disrupting the view from the floor.