Trump Uses Iowa Rally to Defend GOP Grip on Power

President Donald Trump was scheduled to rally Sunday in Dubuque, Iowa, as Republicans fought to keep the Senate seat, the governor’s office and a competitive House district. The president’s campaign stop turned voters into the last battleground for a party trying to hold its institutional power.

More than 52 million votes had already been cast. Trump planned to finish the final weekend of campaigning with a visit to Salina, Kansas, where Adam Hamilton is seeking to become the first Kansas Democrat to win a Senate seat in 94 years. The election had become a referendum on Trump’s second term in the White House, and the GOP’s defensive tour showed how much of its campaign now rested on his ability to mobilize voters.

The seats at stake

Iowa’s 2nd Congressional District, which includes Dubuque, had become competitive as Republicans worked to protect their fragile House majority. The party was also battling to retain a critical Senate seat and the governor’s office. In Kansas, the Senate race put Republican control in the crosshairs of Hamilton’s campaign.

Trump’s strategy marked a shift from 2024, when he worked to flip states that had backed Democrat Joe Biden in 2020. This year, he focused largely on states he had dominated before. Some voters, including previous supporters, were questioning the economic effects of his tariffs and the war in Iran.

Jon Lutz, a Dubuque resident attending his first Trump rally, said he was happy with the president’s second-term record and wanted Republicans to keep control of the House and Senate so Trump’s agenda could advance. “He’s done what he’s said he’s going to do,” Lutz said. “I want him to keep going.” His words put the stakes plainly: voters are being asked to hand one party more room to carry out the president’s program.

Trump’s more than two dozen rallies in October were sometimes overshadowed by meandering asides and graphic descriptions of the physiques of male politicians he supported. He paused campaigning Saturday and spent the evening at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, attending a jungle-themed Halloween party where he bragged about his guests’ wealth and dismissed concerns about the country’s direction. “The country has never done better,” he said.

Tariffs, party discipline and the ballot

Outgoing Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., warned that Trump’s policies could hurt Republicans, particularly tariffs. “Tariffs are not popular here in the Midwest,” Bacon told CNN’s “State of the Union.” “I tried telling the president that.” Bacon predicted a debate about the party’s future if Republicans suffered significant losses that week.

Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, backed Trump’s role in the campaign and said he was confident Republicans would keep the Senate. “There’s no doubt that President Trump has said himself that the midterm election is about him,” Scott told NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “His agenda, without any question, is on the ballot.” The contest is being framed from the top as a vote on one leader and his agenda; the article describes no direct-action or mutual-aid response to the campaign.

Democrats faced their own struggle over party allegiance. In Michigan, Haley Stevens, a Democrat and Abdul El-Sayed’s former opponent in the Senate primary, appeared with Republican Mike Rogers at a church service and later endorsed his campaign. Stevens said she backed Rogers after an invitation to a Democratic event was rescinded. “Our Democratic nominee for Senate said I was no longer welcome in his campaign and that I should stay away,” she said in a video. “And he’s right. And that’s why I am endorsing Mike Rogers for the United States Senate today.”

Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer of New York said the party was “united in our support” for El-Sayed. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, who leads the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, said Democrats would “stand firmly” behind him and “reject any efforts to divide Democrats.” Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont and a leading El-Sayed supporter, said people across Michigan were standing with the nominee.

Michigan is central to Democrats’ effort to retake control of the Senate. If they lose the seat Tuesday, they will face added pressure to win races in more deeply Republican territory, including Texas, Kansas, Ohio or Iowa. The campaign machinery offers voters competing party programs; the immediate contest is over who gets to direct the state’s governing power.