AT A LOSS FOR WORDS

Must-Win MAGA Senator Stammers After Grilling on Trump Plans

Sen. Roger Marshall struggled to answer when he was cornered about the president abandoning a rally he had scheduled with him for this weekend.

Donald Trump’s Kansas Senate pick stammered as he awkwardly answered why the president left him hanging by canceling a rally in his state this weekend.

Trump, 80, had planned to lead a rally alongside Sen. Roger Marshall on Saturday, but the White House abruptly shelved the visit Thursday and announced he will instead host tele-rallies.

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Marshall, 66, tried to spin the president’s change of plans positively when Scripps News reporter Jacob Gardenswartz asked for his reaction—but he could hardly get an answer out at all.

“I’m, I’m not, I’m not sure, sure yet. I think, I, they think that I’m doing so well in the polls, that he’s got, probably got better places to spend his time. Uh, not sure,” he said.

Trump told reporters Thursday that he nixed the Kansas rally because Marshall “is doing very well,” then insulted the appearance of a Reuters reporter who asked if he was getting tired of all the traveling he has done over the past month.

Polls do not paint as rosy a picture as Marshall suggested.

A CNN/SSRS poll of 838 likely voters, conducted Oct. 20-26, found Democrat Adam Hamilton up four points, with a 4.5 percent margin of error.

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In a late September New York Times/Siena University poll, the candidates were even, while an Emerson College poll earlier that month found Hamilton with a one percent lead.

Marshall’s battle to hold his seat in ruby-red Kansas was far from a toss-up in the early days of MAGA 2.0. However, the nonpartisan Cook Political Report says “a perfect confluence of events” has occurred in Hamilton’s favor, and it now considers the race a pick ’em.

If Marshall loses, it would mark the first time since 1932 that Kansas voters elected a Democrat to the Senate.

Those who planned to see Trump and Marshall in person in Salina will instead have to tune in to a telerally. Kansas is one of “more than 20″ locations for virtual campaign stops that the White House now has planned, an official told the Daily Beast.

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Trump held at least two such rallies at the White House on Thursday night, after returning from a South Carolina rally to support Sen. Darline Graham.

Other states on the list are deep-red Alabama, Montana, and Louisiana—reflecting the type of defense Trump has had to resort to amid poor polling for him and Republicans generally.

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