“Let me ask you something,” President Trump told supporters at his final South Carolina rally last week. “How many people in this room have ever been polled? Seriously, I’m curious.”
Trump said he saw “polls, polls, polls” released every day but could not recall meeting anyone who had actually taken part in one. Only a handful of people in the Rock Hill arena, which held several thousand, raised their hands.
“Two hands. It’s amazing,” Trump said, appearing perplexed. His impromptu survey reflected his apparent refusal—or decision—not to accept the wave of polling forecasting a Democratic surge in the midterms. Instead, he is relying on a hidden Republican vote that, he suggests, pollsters have failed to reach.
Trump’s test was hardly scientific, but it was not the only indication that a predicted blue wave could run into a Republican barrier. A recent Washington Post–George Mason University poll in Kansas found that Democrats were nearly three times as likely as Republicans to respond to surveys.
In South Carolina, Trump was beginning a final 72-hour campaign sprint that would take him to Florida, Kansas and Iowa.
The push capped an intense October, during which he held more than 25 rallies and occasionally spoke for as long as two hours.
Trump launched a final burst of rallies in an effort to help struggling Republican candidates
After returning from South Carolina on Thursday, Trump reacted angrily when a Reuters reporter asked the 80-year-old whether he was tired of traveling. He soon reinstated two rallies that had been canceled.
At a Friday rally in Daytona Beach, Florida, Trump acknowledged that he had expected the campaign marathon to be over. “I thought this was it. I thought I could relax,” he said. “Twenty-eight days in a row of this stuff is a lot. It’s a lot. My voice is operating at about 49.2 percent—and then they called me in Iowa, and they called me in Kansas.”
At one point, he paused to dab his eye with a wet napkin. Trump said he would have liked to use eye drops, but feared the “fake news” media would claim he was “seriously ill” or that something was wrong with him.
Behind the scenes, Republican strategists at both the national and state levels had been debating how prominently Trump should feature in the midterm campaign.
One of the party’s biggest challenges is that many of Trump’s most enthusiastic supporters are considered “low-propensity” voters. They turn out for him, but are less likely to vote for congressional candidates.
The most effective way to bring those voters to the polls in large numbers, strategists concluded, was to have Trump personally urge them to do so.
Trump paused to wipe his eye at a rally in Daytona Beach, Florida, saying the “fake news” media would likely claim he was seriously ill
The expansion of early voting also influenced the decision to deploy Trump so heavily. In states where voting had already begun, supporters could attend his rally and cast their ballots the following morning.
The strategy had obvious limits, however. At Trump’s rally for embattled GOP Senate candidate Darline Graham in South Carolina, Our News Outlet spoke with numerous attendees who had crossed the border from North Carolina. They had come to see Trump, not Graham. Although Trump urged them to vote, many could not cast ballots in South Carolina.
Republican strategists therefore had to weigh whether Trump could mobilize enough infrequent voters to offset the independents and moderate Republicans he might drive away by appearing in key states.
That risk was underscored in South Carolina, where Our News Outlet met a woman at the main polling station several hours after the rally.
The woman identified as a Republican but said Trump’s behavior at the rally had disgusted her. She went directly to vote for Democratic Senate candidate Dr. Annie Andrews, largely because she objected to Trump’s use of the slur “Tranny Annie.”
“That’s not a nice word,” she said, describing herself as a former Republican.
Trump’s rally crowds varied throughout the midterms, although the Daytona Beach audience was large and energetic. “Crowd size means success,” he told supporters
Supporters wearing “Blacks for Trump” shirts backed Byron Donalds for Florida governor in Daytona Beach
Trump’s closing argument focused on what he described as Republican achievements: sharp declines in illegal border crossings and violent crime, record highs in the stock market and low unemployment. The country is “hot,” he repeatedly told crowds. The line drew cheers inside the arenas, but appeared less persuasive to voters struggling with the high cost of living.
Throughout the midterm rally marathon, Trump’s unscripted speeches grew longer, stranger and, at times, more controversial. He even appeared to add a new word to the English language: “Watercane.”
His remarks produced a series of headline-generating—and often baffling—moments. Among them was his praise of Nicki Minaj’s “beautiful ass,” followed by similar admiration for Ohio Republican Senate candidate Jon Husted, whose backside Trump described as resembling “a pile of muscle.”
In Florida, Trump tried to clarify the Husted comments, but his explanation only seemed to deepen the confusion.
Later, when someone in the crowd shouted, “We love you,” Trump replied, “I love you,” before realizing the voice had come from a man.
The rallies also carried a strong sense of nostalgia, much of it encouraged by Trump himself. In Florida, he estimated that he had held 1,100 rallies since 2015. He singled out a group of women from North Carolina who have followed him across the country, as well as the “Front Row Joes.”
He also highlighted “Mr. Wall,” a supporter wearing a brick-patterned suit to symbolize the border wall and sitting directly in front of the lectern. Trump said he planned to wear a similar outfit once the rallies came to an end.
“Mr. Wall”—Blake Marnell, 61, of San Diego—has driven to most of the midterm events, covering roughly 12,000 miles. He told Our News Outlet that Trump seemed freer to improvise because he was not personally on the ballot.
“I think he gets to be a little more of a showman at these rallies because there isn’t really a direct consequence of people voting for him,” Marnell said. “He has much more freedom in what he says and in the guests he brings up.”
“I think his energy is as strong as ever. I’m not seeing anything that tells me this is a different President Trump from the earlier rallies. He simply has more leeway, and he’s using it. I think he’s enjoying himself.”
During the final stretch, Trump plainly appeared to be having fun.
Officials have described the rally stage as a refuge for him—a place where he is shielded from the bad news beyond the arena.
His approval ratings were near record lows, gas and diesel prices were not surging, and the war in Iran continued. But before him stood crowds roaring as if they were watching a rock concert.
Before his stump speech, a giant screen played a booming video declaring that “God Made Trump” as a caretaker of the planet.
Trump closed the Florida rally by displaying CNN footage of a poll suggesting that 98 percent of MAGA Republicans intended to vote for Republican congressional candidates in the midterms.
Another CNN poll, he said, showed Republicans rating him as their most admired president ever—six or seven times ahead of Abraham Lincoln.
“Mr. Wall” said Trump appeared to have given himself greater freedom to speak his mind during the midterm campaign
Trump attended a Halloween party at Mar-a-Lago dressed as himself during a break from campaigning
On his final day on the campaign trail, Trump rallied for Republican Senate candidate Ashley Hinson in Iowa, where voters were angry about fuel prices
After stopping at Mar-a-Lago on Saturday for a Halloween party—where he went as himself—Trump spent Sunday making final appearances in Iowa and Kansas.
Those were unexpected choices for the final stops. Trump carried Iowa by 13 points in 2024, but Republican Senate candidate Ashley Hinson was vulnerable amid soaring diesel prices.
Trump typically spoke for 90 minutes to 100 minutes, but his appearance in Dubuque, Iowa, lasted more than two hours. “This isn’t rambling. This isn’t rambling. This is genius,” he told the crowd at one point. He ended the event by dancing to “YMCA.”
From Iowa, Trump flew to an airport in Salina, Kansas, where Air Force One staged a flyover for enthusiastic supporters.
Not long ago, Kansas would have seemed an unlikely target for Democrats. The state last sent a Democrat to the US Senate in 1932, during the Great Depression. Republicans have held the seat for 94 years, the longest uninterrupted run by either party in any state.
A Republican defeat in Kansas would amount to a political earthquake. That was why Trump was sent to close the campaign there, returning less than two weeks after his previous rally in the state.
“I’m closing it down tonight,” Trump said. “I could have been home watching television.”
His final pitch to Kansans included a promise of a $4.3 billion investment by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac next year, a move expected to help 15,000 people purchase homes.
Embattled Republican Senator Roger Marshall, who has closely aligned himself with Trump, was delighted to have the president’s support.
“Glory, glory, hallelujah! God made Trump!” Marshall declared.
The crowds were generally smaller than those at Trump’s presidential campaigns, although that is to be expected during midterm elections. The numbers also reflected a more nimble Trump operation, which arranged events with only a few days’ notice in states where Republican candidates were struggling.
In South Carolina, the arena—previously used for the world cornhole championships—was less than half full.
Florida offered a sharp contrast. Trump filled a large arena, and the crowd remained highly enthusiastic despite waiting for hours under the hot sun. Several people were taken away for medical attention.
The Florida turnout prompted Trump to list some of the largest crowds he had ever drawn. He said the record was well above 100,000 people in New Jersey, then explained why crowd size mattered so much to him.
“Crowd size means success,” he said.
Trump also treats his audiences as focus groups, listening for the loudest reactions to his policies and ideas. In Florida, the biggest cheers came for his call to remove Ilhan Omar from Congress, his promise to give everyone $5,000 if Republicans retained control of the House and Senate, and his description of Robert De Niro as a “moron.”
President Trump ended his rally tour in Kansas alongside embattled Republican Senator Roger Marshall
An aerial view shows one of Trump’s final rallies in Daytona Beach, Florida
The crowd at Trump’s Wichita, Kansas, rally the previous week was also notably large.
A man at the front of the line, dressed from head to toe in the Stars and Stripes, had waited eight hours. Looking back at the thousands of people behind him, he described them as the “silent majority”—voters who do not speak to pollsters but would make themselves heard on November 3.
The number of first-time rally attendees was another encouraging sign for Republicans.
“This is my first rally and I’m very excited,” said nurse Nancy Arias as she waited outside the convention center in Daytona Beach.
Some newcomers were driven by the sense that Trump’s live appearances were becoming a limited opportunity. With the Constitution barring him from seeking another term, they feared time was running out to see the Trump Show in person rather than on television.
When John Magnano heard Trump was coming to Daytona Beach, he said he did not want to repeat a mistake he had made years earlier with “The King.”
“Elvis came to our city once, and I said, ‘I’ll catch him next time.’ Then he died the next year,” said the 76-year-old retiree.
“I never got to see Elvis. He might not come here again. I like what he’s doing, and I want to see him in person.”
Trump’s midterm rallies were frequently disrupted, turning the arenas into giant games of Whac-A-Mole. Protesters would leap up from their seats and shout before being removed by large security officers in tight polo shirts.
The protesters’ slogans became increasingly creative. One of the most memorable was: “Shove the ballroom up your fat ass.”
“It’s always during my punchline,” Trump complained in Florida. “I’ve been hit three times at my punchline,” he said as a woman was escorted out while shouting and raising her middle finger toward the crowd.
Trump claimed the protesters had been paid $250 each. “It’s a shame,” he added. “They get arrested and ruin their lives.”
“They’re losers, sir!” Mr. Wall shouted.
“Is there anything like a Trump rally?” the president asked as he brought the event to a close.
Trump campaigned in Florida for Republican Senator Ashley Moody
A protester shouts before security removes her from one of Trump’s final rallies
Outside the rallies, merchandise vendors appeared satisfied with sales—a possible sign of continued voter enthusiasm and evidence that Republicans’ prospects were not entirely bleak.
In South Carolina, a vendor selling “Trump 2028” hats rapped: “Don’t be a Dumocrat, get your Trump hat. You’ll look good in that.” He was too busy making sales to stop for an interview.
Nearby, Robert Thomas, 53, who has sold thousands of Trump hats and T-shirts at hundreds of rallies over the past decade, said business had been “pretty good” for a midterm election.
“People need something to get behind, something to believe in,” he said. Hats reading “Jesus Is My Savior, Trump Is My President” were among the strongest sellers.
Thomas nevertheless expected business to decline by 2028.
“Trump can’t run again. The only way would be for Vance to run and then step down. That’s not going to happen,” he said.
“I’m not a Vance fan. He’s just a little yabby dog standing behind the big dog.”
