The Guardian·United Kingdom·Sunday, November 1, 2026 at 10:07 PM UTC

Trump takes stage in Iowa in final push before Election Day - follow live

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Chris Hippensteel, David Smith

Donald Trump is making stops in Iowa and Kansas to throw support behind Republicans in competitive Senate races with just two days remaining before the midterm elections. He had originally canceled the in-person appearances in favor of tele-rallies, only to reverse course on Friday.

He likely will emphasize the $15b his administration has promised to farmers in the past few weeks, the Associated Press reported. The spending is intended to offset higher costs farmers have endured largely due to Trump’s tariffs and the war in Iran, which have driven up diesel prices and raised the cost of farm inputs such as fertilizer.

Trump, who spent Saturday at his ⁠Mar-a-Lago club in Florida after weeks of campaigning across multiple states, won Iowa by double digits in 2024, Reuters reported. But polls show Democrats tied with or leading Republicans in many of the state’s races, and Trump’s approval among rural Americans fell to a new low of 45% in October, according to Reuters/Ipsos polling. Kansas, ⁠which last elected a Democratic senator in 1932, is also facing an unexpectedly close race.

Early voting has surged, with more than 53 million votes cast as of Sunday morning, according to an analysis by the University of Florida. Voter enthusiasm for Tuesday’s elections appears to be strongest among Democrats, with 11.1 million registered Democrats having voted so far, according to the states that collate such information, compared with 8.2 million registered Republicans.

The Trump administration has spent months ⁠preparing for a possible Democratic takeover of Congress, developing plans to keep advancing major parts of his agenda through executive power while bracing for investigations of his administration, the Associated Press reported, citing a White House official and two people familiar with the plans.

Democrats need a net gain of four seats in ⁠the House of Representatives as well as the Senate to overturn Republicans’ narrow 218-214 and 53-47 majorities. Opinion polls favor Democrats to win the House, while the Senate remains too close to call.

In other developments:

Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic nominee for Michigan’s tightly fought Senate race, wants Democratic congresswoman Haley Stevens to stay away from his campaign events. The two had planned to appear together Sunday at a church service in Detroit, but Representative Debbie Dingell later told CNN she had spoken to Stevens and told her, “This isn’t working.”
A US judge dismissed Trump’s lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal with prejudice on Saturday, according to a court filing, bringing an end to his legal challenge over the newspaper’s reporting on his alleged birthday letter to Jeffrey Epstein.

Stick with us for more live coverage throughout the day.

Key events

Senator Dan Sullivan – the Alaska Republican allegedly targeted in a ballot-stacking ploy by his Democratic opponent, Mary Peltola – told CNN this morning that he would accept the results of his upcoming election.

Asked by the network’s Jake Tapper if he would only accept the election results if he won, Sullivan responded: “No, I’m going to accept the election results.”

According to a recent New York Times investigation, Peltola’s campaign recruited another man who shared Sullivan’s name to join the race in a ploy to peel away votes from the Republican incumbent.

Since those revelations, Republicans, including President Trump, have called for Peltola to be disqualified from the race and criminally prosecuted. Alaska’s Republican governor has ordered a probe into the matter, and suggested that certification of the election might be uncertain if Peltola wins. The Justice Department has also moved to block the election results if the second (not incumbent) Dan Sullivan peels away enough votes to shift the outcome.

Dan Sullivan smiling in a baseball hat and black jacket — Dan Sullivan hands out candy at a Halloween event outside the Big Lake Lions Club on Saturday. Photograph: Lindsey Wasson/AP

The tactic Peltola’s campaign allegedly employed, while deceptive, is far from unknown in politics, and is not necessarily illegal.

Peltola has continued to deny any knowledge of such a scheme on the part of her campaign, recently telling a reporter at a campaign event that she had “no idea” if any of her staff were involved.

Earlier in his interview with Tapper, Sullivan said he wasn’t focused on how Peltola’s campaign might be legally challenged. He was focused instead on winning the race outright.

He nonetheless expressed doubt that Peltola had lacked any knowledge of the effort to put a second Dan Sullivan on the ballot.

“She’s continually lying to the Alaskan people,” Sullivan said. “And I guarantee you, she’s lying right now.”

Last winter, while Pooja Sethi was canvassing to become the Democratic candidate for the Texas house of representatives, she received a text from a staff member alerting her to a post on X. The Turning Point USA influencer Savanah Hernandez – a Trump supporter known for creating videos that target immigrants – had posted a photo of Sethi’s campaign banner with the caption: “Welcome to politics in Texas.”

The post went viral.

The responses were so vile, Sethi said, “that I called my team and I said I’m going to go home because I need to be with my son. I’m a little scared about what’s happening right now.” The far right even turned her name into a racist slogan: “Don’t Pooja my Texas.”

If elected, Sethi will become the first Asian Democratic woman and south Asian woman in the Texas legislature. “I didn’t run to have to sit here and combat anti-Indian hate. I didn’t know that this was going to be a thing,” said Sethi to a room of about 50 south Asians gathered at a private community listening session on anti-south Asian hate in Austin at the height of election season in October.

The event, which included Washington congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, was hosted by Indian American Impact, a nonpartisan group that supports south Asian candidates and voter engagement.

Across the country, anti-south Asian hate has spiked since Trump took office. According to the Center for the Study of Organized Hate (CSOH), online rhetoric against south Asians surged by 240% between January 2024 and June 2026. In addition to citing xenophobia and racism, the report finds that economic resentment casting south Asians as “invaders” and “job thieves”, increased visibility in politics, and anti-migrant policies that include Trump’s prohibitive annual fee on H1-B visa applications, have contributed to the sharp rise in hate against south Asian communities of all faiths and nationalities.

My colleague Prachi Gupta has the full story

It could have been an awkward moment. Barack Obama, campaigning for Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan, acknowledged that his fellow Democrat has criticised some aspects of the Obama presidency.

“Yeah, Abdul didn’t agree with some things we wanted to do – that our administration was doing – when I was president,” he told a rally in Detroit. “You know who else doesn’t agree with everything I do? Michelle Obama.” The crowd erupted in laughter. “I’d say about five times a day, she says, ‘You knucklehead. Why you do that?’”

It was an elegant attempt to bridge the gap between the old Democratic party and the new. The US midterm elections have brought anti-incumbent sentiment to the fore. Some candidates have actively shrugged off their party labels, eager to cast themselves as outsiders running against the Washington establishment.

Against that backdrop, who wants a 65-year-old former president who left office nearly a decade ago with his promise of hope and change still only partly realised? It seems that Democrats do.

With days to go before midterm elections that will decide the balance of power in Congress for the remainder of Donald Trump’s second term, Democrats have turned to their most formidable orator for a series of blistering speeches in the campaign’s closing days.

America’s first Black president has mercilessly mocked Trump’s autocratic pretensions and derided his foreign policy misadventures in the Middle East.

“This election is our last, best chance of at least reining him in, reining in some of the foolishness of this administration,” he said in Georgia. “It’s the circuit-breaker in the system, and we need to flip it.”

My colleague David Smith has the full story:

Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog.

In other developments:

Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic nominee for Michigan’s tightly fought Senate race, wants Democratic congresswoman Haley Stevens to stay away from his campaign events. The two had planned to appear together Sunday at a church service in Detroit, but Representative Debbie Dingell later told CNN she had spoken to Stevens and told her, “This isn’t working.”
A US judge dismissed Trump’s lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal with prejudice on Saturday, according to a court filing, bringing an end to his legal challenge over the newspaper’s reporting on his alleged birthday letter to Jeffrey Epstein.

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