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With only days left until the 2026 midterm elections, United States President Donald Trump has announced he will scale back his packed rally schedule, cancelling scheduled appearances in Iowa and Kansas.

The Republican National Committee (RNC) confirmed the cancellations in a statement on Thursday, unveiling a slate of “tele-rallies” to replace the cancelled events.

RNC Chairman Joe Gruters argued that the virtual appearances will be more efficient, reaching more voters than Trump otherwise could with on-the-ground stops.

“Voters across the country want to hear from President Trump before Election Day, and this 72-hour sprint will be a huge boost in the closing days,” Gruters said.

The tele-rallies will be broadcast to nearly 20 states, including battlegrounds like Michigan, Alaska, Texas and Iowa, where competitive races are unfolding for the US Senate.

The RNC statement added that further events may be announced in the coming days.

Trump’s rally on Friday in Daytona Beach, Florida – some 320 kilometres (200 miles) up the coast from his Mar-a-Lago resort – will proceed as planned.

Less than five days remain until the midterm elections on November 3, which will decide the composition of Congress, as well as key state and local offices.

Whichever party controls Congress will shape Trump’s legislative agenda during the final two years of his second term.

Trump has also expressed concern that the Democratic Party might push to impeach him for a third time if it wins majorities in both the House of Representatives and the Senate.

Currently, the Republican Party holds narrow majorities in both chambers. In the Senate, the party holds 53 seats out of 100. In the House, it has 218 seats, with all 435 offices up for grabs this election cycle.

The Senate, meanwhile, will see only about a third of its offices on the midterm ballot. Unlike in the House, where terms only last two years, senators are elected to six-year time spans, and their elections are staggered across different election years, to allow for greater stability.

Political forecasters have predicted Democrats have an advantage this midterm election cycle, citing Trump’s slumping poll numbers and voter blowback over cost-of-living issues, foreign policy and other concerns.

Harvard University’s ElectIt election forecasting model, for instance, has estimated that Democrats have a 94 percent chance of taking control of the House.

The race for the Senate, however, will be more difficult, with fewer seats available to win.

Trump has placed himself at the centre of the Republican strategy to defend the party’s congressional majorities. To motivate his base of support, he has repeatedly encouraged voters with the phrase, “Pretend I’m on the ballot.”

Midterm elections occur halfway through a president’s term, and they are often considered a reflection of a president’s popularity.

At 80 years old, however, Trump will be the oldest president by the time his term concludes, and his health has been a concern.

Since starting his second term, the Republican leader has been photographed with bruising on his hands, sparking speculation about any undisclosed medical conditions he may have.

After concluding a rally in South Carolina on Thursday, reporters inquired about his health.

“Mr President, you’ve been doing a lot of travel. We’ve been doing a lot of travel with you. How are you feeling? How’s your health?” a reporter from the news agency Reuters asked on the tarmac.

Trump, at first, dodged the question, focusing instead on his optimism about the Republican Party’s prospects in the election.

“We’re going to have a strong Tuesday night,” Trump said.

But the reporter continued with his line of questioning: “So you’re not going to Kansas has nothing to do with you being sick of travelling?” That prompted an irate reply from Trump, who lashed out.

“Oh, you’re sick to ask that question. You are sick,” Trump said, as he proceeded to insult the reporter’s weight.

“You’ve been following me for two weeks. I feel perfect. You are disgusting. Put yourself in shape. You look like hell.”

During his remarks to the reporter, Trump also questioned the need to visit Salina, Kansas, as he had planned to do on Saturday. “I don’t feel I have to go to Kansas,” the president said.

Kansas, normally a Republican stronghold, has not elected a Democrat to the Senate since 1932.

But this election cycle, Republican Senator Roger Marshall is facing a tight race with Democrat Adam Hamilton, the pastor of a megachurch.

On Thursday, the news outlet CNN released a poll showing Hamilton up by four percentage points, leading with 49 percent support to Marshall’s 45 percent.

There are just weeks to go until the US midterm elections that will decide control of Congress, with campaigning in full swing around the country and voters weighing who to back at the ballot box.

The elections will have a potentially major impact on the remainder of President Donald Trump’s time in office. He is facing challenging political headwinds with concerns over rising costs and the war in Iran high on the minds of voters.

Ahead of the elections, the BBC’s Sarah Smith travelled across Iowa to speak to voters in the predominately Republican state.

Produced by Cai Pigliucci, filmed by John Landy and edited by Blanca Estrada

WASHINGTON — With the midterm elections just over three weeks away, the fight for control of the U.S. Senate is intensifying in battleground states, as Democrats push into red regions and Republicans pour money into key contests.

Campaigns are entering a crucial stretch for persuading the independent voters who will probably determine outcomes in swing races. Nearly all of the most competitive Senate races are in states with significant swaths of people unaffiliated with either major party — the “kingmakers” in these high-stakes midterms, said Jeremy Gruber, an independent-voting expert.

“Independent voters are going to be deciding this election in every respect,” said Gruber, senior vice president of Open Primaries, an organization that advocates for states to open primary elections to unaffiliated voters.

The urgency around courting nonaligned voters has been on display at recent debates, in ads flooding the airwaves and in the campaign money pouring into key states. For Republicans, it has become an effort to put distance between themselves and President Trump; for Democrats, it’s often a rhetorical shift toward the center and away from the far left.

In Iowa, Republican Ashley Hinson used a Wednesday night debate to emphasize her willingness to break with Trump. In Kansas, Democrat Adam Hamilton is circulating a video in which he describes himself as both liberal and conservative. In Alaska, a GOP-backed ad blitz launched last week aims to persuade voters that Democrat Mary Peltola isn’t independent-minded.

Mary Peltola, a Democrat running for the U.S. Senate seat in Alaska, addresses supporters at an election watch party on Aug. 18 in Anchorage.

(Mark Thiessen / Associated Press)

Though many unaffiliated voters have made up their minds, those who remain undecided will begin making decisions soon, as mail ballots go out and early voting begins in some states.

“For Republicans who are running behind and are looking at a potentially devastating midterm election performance, what they really need to do is target the independents who lean Republican,” said Karen Kedrowski, an Iowa State University political scientist. “For Democrats in some place like Iowa … what they need to do is make it seem safe [to independents] to vote for a Democratic candidate.”

Unaffiliated constituents have long been key to victory in swing states, particularly where races are traditionally decided by small margins. They have been viewed as particularly persuadable this year, as public dissatisfaction with Trump’s economic policies puts the votes of swing voters who backed him in 2024 up for grabs.

Forecasters predict that Democrats are on track for the House majority and could hold a majority of gubernatorial seats for the first time since 2010. Though Senate control remains a toss-up, Democrats’ chances are viewed by forecasters to have significantly improved since the summer.

A set of New York Times/Siena polls reported last week showed Democratic candidates for the Senate ahead in Texas, Michigan, Alaska and Ohio and neck-and-neck in Kansas and Iowa — all states Trump carried in 2024. Republicans, meanwhile, are feeling increasingly bullish about their chances in Maine, New Hampshire and Minnesota, all states that went blue in the last presidential election.

Republicans hold a significant fundraising advantage, however, and party donors are pouring money into key races, hoping the spending can cut into the Democrats’ edge. By September’s end, GOP advertisers had more than doubled their spending compared with August, outstripping Democrats, according to tracker AdImpact. Among the nine Senate races considered the tightest by forecasters, Republicans have outspent Democrats in all, AdImpact reported.

But on Friday, the Cook Political Report, a leading election forecaster, moved 18 House races in Democrats’ direction, saying that heavy ad spending by Republicans has not begun to move the needle in their favor.

Democrats view themselves as in their “strongest position yet” to win the majority, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), who chairs the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, said in a statement last week.

“In this final stretch of the election, Democrats will continue to vigorously campaign and fight for every vote across the expanded map,” Gillibrand said.

Republicans are confident about their ability to persuade voters in key states, said Bernadette Breslin, a spokesperson for the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

“Republicans will defend the Senate majority across key battlegrounds that have trended reliably red,” Breslin said, “with candidates like Mike Rogers [in Michigan] and Roger Marshall [in Kansas] winning over independents by exposing their Democratic opponents’ radical, unaffordable agendas.”

Along with the decisions of independent and swing voters, the midterm outcomes could also hinge on the level of turnout within each party, analysts say. If a portion of the party faithful stay home in a given place — for instance, disillusioned conservatives in Kansas or frustrated Black Democrats in Michigan — that could swing individual races, analysts said.

The number of independent voters reached a record high this year, with 45% of American adults identifying as political independents in Gallup polling. Equal shares identified as Republicans and Democrats, 27% for each party. The trend is partly driven by majorities of millennial and Gen Z voters choosing to be unaffiliated with either party, according to Gallup research.

Such voters make up a majority in Alaska and between 30% and 40% of all registered voters in Maine, Iowa, New Hampshire, North Carolina and Ohio. They account for about 29% in Kansas and about 16% in Texas and Michigan, according to state data compiled by the Independent Voter Project.

Across recent polls, independent voters have favored Democrats and expressed dissatisfaction with Trump. In a late September poll from Emerson College Polling, 66% of independents said Trump has done worse than expected during his second term in office.

State Rep. James Talarico, Democratic U.S. Senate candidate, listens at a food drive at the Frederick Douglass Human Services and Justice Center on Sept. 9 in Dallas.

(Julia Demaree Nikhinson / Associated Press)

In Texas, Democrat James Talarico led Republican Ken Paxton among independents by 32 points in a September poll by Texas Public Opinion Research. The Democratic candidate in Ohio, Sherrod Brown, led Republican Sen. Jon Husted by 27 points among independents in a CNN poll released Thursday.

In Kansas, where the Senate race has become unexpectedly close amid economic-driven anger with Trump, disapproval of the president’s performance among independents appears to be rubbing off on incumbent Sen. Roger Marshall, the Republican seeking reelection.

Fifty-two percent felt unfavorably toward Marshall and 62% disapproved of Trump’s performance, according to a recent Emerson College/Nexstar poll.

In those battleground red states, that creates a tough fight for both parties, analysts said. With control of the Senate hanging in the balance, candidates are duking it out in fundraising and on the campaign trail to win every last vote.

“Both campaigns are raking in ridiculous amounts of money … and they’re spending every penny because [they] have to,” said Wichita State University political science professor Alexandra Middlewood, referring to the Kansas Senate race. “We see that they’re really going to have to fight it out all the way to the end.”

Debates are another tool for candidates to reach independent voters, said Corwin Smidt, a political science professor at Michigan State University.

Democrat Abdul El-Sayed, left, and Republican Mike Rogers meet in a Michigan Senate debate Thursday night in Grand Rapids.

(Paul Sancya / Pool Photo)

In Michigan, where the Senate candidates sparred in their first debate Thursday evening, Rep. Mike Rogers, the Republican Senate nominee, has distanced himself from Trump twice in recent weeks, first calling for an end to the war in Iran and then releasing an ad last week denouncing the tariffs against Canada. Democrat Abdul El-Sayed, meanwhile, announced a rally with former President Obama, an appeal to mainstream voters.

“They’ve got to try to both win over people who have been paying attention, but also introduce themselves to the ones who haven’t been paying attention,” Smidt said.

Winning unaffiliated voters can require a tightrope walk for candidates who are faced with the dual tasks of appealing to their party base while persuading independent constituents.

In the final stretch of the campaign, candidates seeking independent votes should telegraph a willingness to admit their party’s flaws and an understanding that voters are turned off by partisan rhetoric, said Chad Peace, legal strategist at the Independent Voter Project, which advocates for open primaries.

“They have to communicate to those folks and try to meet them where they’re at,” Peace said. “[Independents] want the campaigns of persuasion, they don’t want to hear you tell me how bad the other candidate is.”

And, Gruber said, they want to be engaged with, not ignored.

“Independent voters,” he said, “are going to be responding to those candidates and parties that actually talk to them.”