Trump Uses Final Kansas Rally to Defend GOP Majority

President Donald Trump held the final rally of his 28-stop midterm campaign Sunday night outside a hangar at Salina's regional airport, seeking to turn out supporters and help Republicans preserve their slim congressional majority. The rally put the machinery of presidential campaigning behind a party’s effort to retain power in Congress. The immediate stakes, as described by the campaign, were turnout and control of that majority.

Trump’s campaign blitz included 28 events across the country since Oct. 1. His latest approval rating was 40%, according to the latest NBC News poll. Those figures place the rally in a campaign effort measured both by the events staged for supporters and by a poll tracking public approval. The source does not describe any grassroots organizing or mutual-aid effort connected to the event.

The Majority at Stake

Trump chose Salina, in bright-red Kansas, where Republican Sen. Roger Marshall faces an unexpectedly tough challenge from Democrat Adam Hamilton. A rally by the president thus served a local Senate contest as well as the national party’s effort to protect its congressional majority. The campaign sought to mobilize Trump’s supporters for Republican candidates, while the source identifies Marshall’s race as unusually difficult for a Republican in the state.

The event was the last rally of Trump’s last midterm election as president. That places a presidential campaign apparatus at the center of the closing push, with supporters asked to turn out ahead of Election Day. The article reports no legislative proposal or other electoral remedy beyond the campaign’s effort to help Republicans retain their majority; the contest itself remains the route described for deciding who holds congressional power.

A Pool in the Closing Argument

Trump is scheduled to deliver what he has called his “closing argument” on the midterms at the Reflecting Pool in Washington on Monday afternoon. A White House official said he would also discuss renovations in the Washington, D.C.-area, including the newly reopened pool. When a reporter asked Sunday why he was speaking there, Trump replied, “just to show how beautiful it is.” He said the pool was finished and repeated unfounded allegations that it had been vandalized.

The renovation is another part of the story, and the reported sequence is less polished than the planned setting. Trump moved to have the Reflecting Pool renovated over the summer. After the project was completed, its lining began peeling up and the water turned green with algae, prompting it to close again. It has since reopened, according to the White House official’s description of the Monday remarks.

The Campaign Continues by Phone

Trump has no scheduled in-person rallies Monday. Instead, he is expected to call into a series of tele-rallies. The final Kansas event closed his 28-stop campaign blitz, but the planned calls keep his effort to reach supporters going as Election Day approaches. The stated objective remains turning out those supporters and helping Republicans preserve their slim congressional majority.