WHIPLASH

Trump Forced to Make Embarrassing U-Turn on Campaign Trail

The president was meant to be campaigning in Kansas. Then he pulled out. Now, the state is back on his schedule.

President Donald Trump, who pulled out of a Kansas rally as Republicans say Sen. Roger Marshall is headed for defeat, has put the state back on his schedule.

CNN’s Kaitlan Collins said Trump would now hold rallies in Iowa and Kansas this Sunday.

“This is a revival of the two rallies he had planned and then pulled down yesterday. Officials tell CNN they were rearranged to accommodate tele-rallies,” she said in a tweet.

Earlier, Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough said Trump was ditching Kansas because Marshall was expected to lose his Senate race.

The Morning Joe host dismissed Trump’s suggestion that Marshall is doing so well that he could manage without another presidential visit as “a lie.”

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Republican operatives had contacted Scarborough on Thursday afternoon with a completely different assessment. “This race has been gone for a week,” they said.

Scarborough’s fellow network pundit Jonathan Lemire added that Trump has dropped appearances in Kansas, as well as in Iowa, partly because he wants to avoid being associated with candidates who look like they suffer a defeat at Tuesday’s midterms next week.

“I was told he doesn’t want to be standing next to someone who he thinks is going to lose,” Lemire said.

The Friday broadcast followed Trump’s decision Thursday to abandon a Saturday appearance in Salina, where he had been expected to support Marshall against Democratic challenger Adam Hamilton.

Trump had already campaigned near Wichita on October 19, while Vice President JD Vance appeared in Topeka on October 26.

The president carried Kansas by 16 points in 2024. Voters there have not elected a Democratic senator since 1932, but Hamilton is now polling at 49 percent with Marshall at 45 percent.

Trump’s plummeting approval ratings have hit an all-time low of 32 percent ahead of next Tuesday’s midterm elections.

His deeply unpopular war of choice with Iran and its impact on already widespread unaffordability have put Democrats tearing ahead in races across the country and turned many previously safe Republican seats competitive for the first time in decades.

The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment on this story.

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