Trump to hold tele-rallies as he questions final campaign push

On the campaign trail

• 3 days to go : President Donald Trump won’t hold in-person campaign events today, instead planning telerallies to try to reach more voters. While he reinstated events in Iowa and Kansas on Sunday, he complained yesterday that his voice was wearing down and he wasn’t sure more rallies would help.

• Michigan divisions : Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed’s campaign has asked primary rival Haley Stevens to stay away from his remaining events, a source tells CNN. That calls into question a previously expected joint appearance Sunday in Detroit.

• What happens in Alaska: Ranked-choice voting and mail-in balloting across the state means a critical Senate race could take weeks to resolve. Now, ramped-up federal and state investigations into Democrat Mary Peltola’s campaign could create new complications.

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Behind the scenes of CNN's Decision Desk

CNN’s Decision Desk delivers projections behind Election Night in America. Jennifer Agiesta takes you behind the scenes of the desk ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.

CNN's Jennifer Agiesta takes you behind the scenes of CNN's Decision Desk ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.

Stevens was asked to stay away from El-Sayed's events, source says

Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed’s campaign has asked his former primary opponent, Rep. Haley Stevens, to skip all campaign events in the race’s closing days, a person familiar with the matter said.

That means a planned Sunday show of unity — with the two appearing at a Detroit church with South Carolina Rep. Jim Clyburn — is now likely to exclude Stevens. It would have been her first time appearing alongside El-Sayed since their heated August primary.

Politico first reported that the El-Sayed campaign had asked the congresswoman to stay away from events. Stevens did not immediately respond to a request for comment about her plans.

Some context: The news comes after the two traded barbs Friday . Stevens called on El-Sayed to denounce an outside group’s controversial advertisement that blames US foreign aid for Israel for Americans’ struggles with high costs. El-Sayed responded that Stevens “seems intent on relitigating a primary that ended three months ago.” El-Sayed is a vocal critic of Israel’s actions in Gaza and of the United States’ financial backing of Israel’s military.

Criticism: State Sen. Mallory McMorrow, who also ran in the Senate primary but dropped out four weeks before the election, was sharply critical of Stevens , casting her actions as disruptive to Democrats’ chances of defeating Republican former Rep. Mike Rogers and retaining a Senate seat that is crucial to the battle for majority control of the chamber next Tuesday.

GOP rival tries to court Democrats: Meanwhile, Rogers on Friday accused El-Sayed of “vile racism and antisemitism” and said Democrats who backed Stevens have “a home with us.”

Take a look back at Trump's Florida rally on Friday

President Donald Trump rallied supporters in Daytona Beach, Florida yesterday evening, just days before the midterm election. It was his second rally in the state in a week, after appearing in Fort Myers last Friday.

Florida has trended very Republican in the Trump era. A New York Times/Siena poll released earlier this week showed that the Senate race in the state is not nearly as competitive as in some red states with margin-of-error races.

Catch up on what he said at the rally:

‘Does it matter?’: Further explaining why the rallies in Iowa and Kansas were canceled and then restored to his schedule, Trump said he had questioned whether his presence would even matter.

Alaska Senate race: While Trump said Attorney General Todd Blanche would make his own decision about whether Alaska Democrat Mary Peltola should be prosecuted, the president made his own wishes very clear. He was alluding to the criminal probe into whether Alaska Democrats sought to confuse voters by recruiting a candidate intended to siphon votes from Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan.

Warning to GOP: Trump urged Florida Republicans to play from behind, warning them not to get too confident ahead of Tuesday.

CNN’s Julia Benbrook, Kit Maher and Aleena Fayaz contributed reporting.

Trump's rallies this weekend are back on — after an abrupt about-face

Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

President Donald Trump will hold rallies tomorrow in Kansas and Iowa, he announced Friday, just hours after the White House said he was scrapping the events and opting for a slew of virtual engagements instead.

Trump has insisted he got calls from people in both Iowa and Kansas urging him to reinstate the in-person rallies.

“They said, ‘If you could go it would be better than a telerally.’ And I tried to talk them out of that and I said, ‘What about a telerally?’ But they asked me,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Friday, just before departing for a campaign event in Daytona, Florida.

“So I’m going to do two on Sunday,” he added. “And I was a little bit concerned about Saturday because college football. It’s Iowa, Kansas.”

How we got here: Trump originally had a rally in Salina, Kansas, planned for Saturday and another in Dubuque, Iowa, on Sunday.

Those were shifted to telerallies on Thursday, in a confounding last-minute strategy shift that was covered critically in the media, leading to Trump becoming irritated at how the cancellations were being received. The rallies were subsequently revived Friday morning.

The president insisted Friday that the telerallies are a successful medium for him, saying he’s “unbelievable” and “it only seems to work for me.”

Trump still plans to stump for several candidates via telerally, and said Friday that he’d call into quite a few of them the day before the election.

在竞选活动中

• 距离大选还有3天：唐纳德·特朗普总统今天不会举行线下竞选活动，而是计划举行电话集会，以争取更多选民的支持。虽然他周日在爱荷华州和堪萨斯州恢复了竞选活动，但他昨天抱怨说自己的嗓子已经不堪重负，而且不确定举行更多集会是否真的有帮助。

• 密歇根州出现分歧：据CNN消息人士透露，民主党参议员候选人阿卜杜勒·埃尔-赛义德的竞选团队已要求其初选竞争对手海莉·史蒂文斯不要参加他剩余的竞选活动。这使得原定于周日在底特律举行的联合活动能否如期举行蒙上了一层阴影。

• 阿拉斯加的情况：全州实行排序复选制投票和邮寄投票，这意味着一场关键的参议院选举可能需要数周才能决出胜负。如今，联邦和州政府加大了对民主党候选人玛丽·佩尔托拉竞选活动的调查力度，这可能会使选情更加复杂。

• 在选举之夜及之后，第一时间获取最重要的最新消息。订阅突发新闻邮件提醒。

CNN决策台幕后故事

CNN的选举预测台为您带来美国大选之夜的幕后预测。詹妮弗·阿吉斯塔将带您走进2026年中期选举前的幕后，了解选举预测台的运作情况。

在 2026 年中期选举前夕，CNN 的 Jennifer Agiesta 将带您走进 CNN 决策台的幕后。

消息人士称，史蒂文斯被要求远离埃尔-赛义德的活动。

据一位知情人士透露，密歇根州民主党参议员候选人阿卜杜勒·埃尔-赛义德的竞选团队已要求其前党内初选对手、众议员海莉·史蒂文斯在竞选的最后几天不要参加任何竞选活动。

这意味着原定于周日举行的团结活动——两人将与南卡罗来纳州众议员吉姆·克莱伯恩一同在底特律的一座教堂亮相——很可能将史蒂文斯排除在外。这将是自​​8月份激烈的党内初选以来，她首次与埃尔-赛义德一同公开露面。

Politico率先报道称，埃尔-赛义德竞选团队已要求这位女议员不要出席相关活动。史蒂文斯尚未就其计划作出回应。

背景：此前，两人于周五展开了激烈的口水战。史蒂文斯呼吁埃尔-赛义德谴责一个外部团体发布的争议性广告，该广告将美国人高昂的生活成本归咎于美国对以色列的援助。埃尔-赛义德回应称，史蒂文斯“似乎执意要重提三个月前就已结束的初选”。埃尔-赛义德一直以来都公开批评以色列在加沙的行动以及美国对以色列军方的财政支持。

批评：州参议员马洛里·麦克莫罗也参加了参议院初选，但在选举前四周退出了竞选。她对史蒂文斯进行了严厉的批评，认为她的行为破坏了民主党人击败共和党前众议员迈克·罗杰斯的机会，也破坏了民主党人保住参议院席位的机会。这个席位对于下周二争夺参议院多数席位的控制权至关重要。

共和党对手试图拉拢民主党人：与此同时，罗杰斯周五指责埃尔-赛义德“卑鄙的种族主义和反犹太主义”，并表示支持史蒂文斯的民主党人“与我们同在”。

回顾一下特朗普周五在佛罗里达州的集会。

距离中期选举仅剩几天之际，唐纳德·特朗普总统昨晚在佛罗里达州代托纳海滩举行了支持者集会。这是他一周内在该州举行的第二次集会，此前他于上周五在迈尔斯堡露面。

在特朗普时代，佛罗里达州的共和党倾向日益明显。本周早些时候公布的《纽约时报》/锡耶纳学院民调显示，该州的参议院选举竞争远不如一些传统共和党州那样激烈，双方胜负往往只在毫厘之间。

回顾一下他在集会上说了些什么：

“这重要吗？”：特朗普进一步解释了为什么爱荷华州和堪萨斯州的集会先是被取消，后来又恢复，他说他曾质疑自己的出席是否真的重要。

阿拉斯加州参议员竞选：尽管特朗普表示，是否起诉阿拉斯加州民主党候选人玛丽·佩尔托拉将由司法部长托德·布兰奇自行决定，但总统本人却明确表达了自己的意愿。他指的是针对阿拉斯加州民主党人是否试图通过招募一位旨在分流共和党参议员丹·沙利文选票的候选人来迷惑选民的刑事调查。

向共和党发出警告：特朗普敦促佛罗里达州的共和党人要做好落后的准备，并警告他们不要在周二之前过于自信。

CNN的Julia Benbrook、Kit Maher和Aleena Fayaz对报道亦有贡献。

在突然改变主意后，特朗普本周末的竞选集会又要开始了。

Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

唐纳德·特朗普总统周五宣布，他将于明天在堪萨斯州和爱荷华州举行竞选集会。就在几个小时前，白宫还表示，他将取消这些集会，转而选择一系列线上活动。

特朗普坚称，他接到了来自爱荷华州和堪萨斯州民众的电话，敦促他恢复线下集会。

“他们说，‘如果你能去现场，那就比电话集会好。’我试图劝阻他们，我说，‘那电话集会怎么样？’但他们还是问我，”特朗普周五在椭圆形办公室告诉记者，当时他正准备前往佛罗里达州代托纳参加竞选活动。

“所以我周日要拍两场，”他补充道。“周六我有点担心，因为是大学橄榄球赛。对手是爱荷华大学和堪萨斯大学。”

事情经过是这样的：特朗普原计划周六在堪萨斯州萨利纳举行集会，周日在爱荷华州迪比克举行另一场集会。

周四，这些集会改为线上举行，这一令人费解的临时策略转变引起了媒体的广泛批评，也导致特朗普对取消集会的舆论反应感到不满。随后，集会于周五上午恢复举行。

总统周五坚称，电话集会对他来说是一种成功的媒介，他说自己“不可思议”，而且“这似乎只对我有效”。

特朗普仍然计划通过电话集会为几位候选人助选，并于周五表示，他将在选举前一天给其中不少候选人打电话。