By MICHELLE L. PRICE and SEUNG MIN KIM
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has rescheduled weekend campaign rallies in a pair of critical Midwestern states that he had previously canceled, according to a person familiar with the plans.
The Republican president will now visit Iowa and Kansas for back-to-back campaign rallies on Sunday, said the person, who insisted on anonymity to discuss his schedule.
The scheduling whiplash underscored the chaotic and shifting nature of the final days of the midterm campaigns, in which Trump and Republicans are scrambling to retain their majorities in Congress in an election that has turned largely on affordability issues and the president’s favorability. At the start of the month, Trump promised a marathon sprint of his signature rallies to shore up Republican candidates, and he has headlined 25 of them so far in October.
The Republican National Committee initially said in canceling the rallies that Trump would do telerallies instead to reach more voters. But the person familiar with the latest plans said the Iowa and Kansas rallies have been rearranged to accommodate the new telerallies added to Trump’s schedule.
Trump’s initial plans had him in Salina, Kansas, on Saturday and in Dubuque, Iowa, on Sunday. Then the plans shifted so he would instead do a “72-hour sprint” of phone rallies, meant so the president could reach more voters nationwide, according to the RNC.
Now, Trump will be holding both the Iowa and Kansas rallies on Sunday. Both states are home to battleground Senate races that will help determine whether Republicans hold onto their majority in the chamber in the midterm elections.
Trump has already traveled to both states this month to boost GOP Sen. Roger Marshall in Kansas and Republican Iowa Senate candidate Ashley Hinson, who currently serves in the House.
The president on Thursday furiously pushed back at the notion that the initial cancellation of his Kansas rally, which became public as he was returning to Washington from another campaign event in South Carolina, was tied to fatigue or his health.
