Trump Cancels Rallies, Then Orders Staff to Revive Them

Donald Trump called off rallies in Iowa and Kansas on Thursday, then ordered them back on less than 24 hours later after getting irked at a reporter who asked why he'd scrapped them. That's the machinery of American electoral politics, two days before the Tuesday, November 3 election: staff scrambling at the whim of one man's mood.

Who Has the Power

According to people familiar with the matter who spoke to CNN, Trump signed off on the changes, then grew annoyed over media coverage of the decision. He lashed out at a reporter who questioned why he called off the events. The president demanded the rallies be reinstated, those people said, sending staff scrambling.

The official line is tidier. Officials said the schedule had merely been rearranged to allow more time for Trump to dial into virtual events. Speaking at the White House on Friday afternoon, Trump said he'd received calls from friends in Iowa and Kansas asking him to reconsider. Two accounts, and neither one involves the voters of Iowa or Kansas.

When the Kansas rally was first scrapped, Trump told reporters he didn't "feel I have to go to Kansas" because GOP Sen. Roger Marshall was "doing really well." Then he said the call had nothing to do with Marshall's electoral prospects or his own stamina after a month of nonstop travel. "The one thing I can say is that no president has ever worked so hard on a midterm," he told supporters this week.

What They're Calling Democracy

The rallies he briefly canceled are now his last scheduled in-person campaign stops of the cycle. Monday brings telerallies. On Saturday, Trump spent the afternoon at Mar-a-Lago dialing into calls for Republican candidates in five states: Pennsylvania, Ohio, New York and Michigan, plus two calls for Florida, according to his Truth Social posts. "Answer your phones, and ENJOY!" he wrote.

Some political operatives on the ground were relieved when the in-person events were axed. Telerallies, they noted, tend to be more scripted. Even the party's own foot soldiers prefer the candidate when he can't improvise in front of a crowd.

In the last two weeks he has appeared at nearly two dozen rallies, in states including Texas, Ohio and Florida, and has headlined more than 20 midterm rallies in October. The Thursday trip to South Carolina was his 25th midterm rally this month.

The Ballot Trap

A Daily Beast item citing Karl Rove put Trump's approval rating in the mid-30s, with Republicans bracing for potential losses Tuesday. Rove said telling voters to "pretend I'm on the ballot" appeals only to strong supporters.

Some voters seem to have taken that instruction literally. Late Saturday, the recorder's office of Yavapai County, Arizona, posted that the "president is not on the ballot," adding, "We are receiving many calls asking why that race is missing." People are phoning a county office to ask where the man's name is, because they've been told the whole thing is about him.

CNN reported that Iowa Republicans are in a tight battle with Democrats, with the GOP at risk of losing three House seats and one in the Senate. Democrats are favored to win 47 Senate seats so far, with 51 required for a majority.

That's the choice on offer: one faction of the governing class scrambling to hold seats, another scrambling to take them, both asking for your vote while the actual decisions get made by whoever's mood prevails that day. Nobody in Kansas or Iowa decided whether those rallies happened. A reporter's question did, and a president's irritation.