By BILL BARROW, SOPHIE BATES and JILL COLVIN<\/p>\n
CORINTH, Miss. (AP) \u2014 President Donald Trump campaigned Monday in Mississippi, as he continued a closing midterm rally blitz<\/a> that has highlighted Republicans\u2019 challenges ahead of an election that could drastically shift power in Washington and statehouses across the country. <\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m here because Cindy\u2019s doing great, but I just got to make sure. I can\u2019t take a chance,\u201d Trump told the crowd, his voice audibly hoarse, as he worked to boost Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, who is facing a surprisingly stiff challenge<\/a> from Democrat Scott Colom.<\/p>\n Colom was spotted at the rally site, too, creating the rare spectacle of Trump\u2019s staunchest supporters interacting directly with a figure the president would soon go on to denigrate as a \u201cMarxist radical\u201d and \u201cfake\u201d and \u201cshameless phony who pretends to be a moderate\u201d from the stage.<\/p>\n Mississippi, among the nation\u2019s most reliably Republican states, is not where the GOP envisioned needing a late-October stop from the president. But Colom is one of many Democratic underdogs who have managed to expand the House and Senate battleground maps because of widespread voter discontent<\/a> over inflation, the Iran war and other aspects of Trump\u2019s second presidency. <\/p>\n He said he had planned to go to the rally site to listen to what was on Trump supporters\u2019 minds. <\/p>\n \u201cThey actually deserve a senator that will listen to them, that actually cares about what they think, actually cares about what they\u2019re going through,\u201d Colom said ahead of the president\u2019s arrival.<\/p>\n Trump\u2019s event kicks off a week of aggressive campaigning that will include more stops in states he won comfortably<\/a> in 2024, including Texas, South Carolina and Iowa. Trump also plans to hold a rally Saturday in Salina, Kansas, officials announced late Monday, marking his second visit to the state in less than two weeks.<\/p>\n Democrats, including progressives, are expanding their efforts<\/p>\n Top Democratic candidates and their surrogates were also greeting voters \u2014 more than 30 million of whom have already cast ballots, according to data collected by The Associated Press from election administrators across the country \u2014 as they try to end Republicans\u2019 threadbare majority in the House, take over a Senate majority that was once thought secure for Republicans and end the GOP\u2019s national advantage in state capitals. <\/p>\n Former Vice President Kamala Harris, Democrats\u2019 2024 presidential candidate, campaigned in Wisconsin with Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley,<\/a> who faces Rep. Tom Tiffany, a Trump ally, for governor. Crowley would be the state\u2019s first Black governor if elected to lead the battleground state.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a tight race because the stakes are so high,\u201d Harris said at the event billed as a \u201cWomen for Crowley\u201d rally. <\/p>\n Meanwhile, in Michigan, Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed distanced himself from an ad created by a political action committee called Rebellion PAC that blames high grocery prices on U.S. support for Israel.<\/p>\n \u201cThis ad is not affiliated in any way with the Abdul for Senate campaign,\u201d a spokesperson for El-Sayed, Roxie Richner, said in a statement about the spot, which features a couple discussing U.S. support for Israel as they shop for groceries.<\/p>\n \u201cApparently it\u2019s costing us a lot of money to drop bombs on Gaza,\u201d the woman says.<\/p>\n The ad had been condemned by U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens, who narrowly lost to El-Sayed in the Democratic primary.<\/p>\n The way to win Michigan \u201cis not by blaming the high costs of our goods on the only Jewish homeland in the world,\u201d Stevens wrote on X<\/a>.<\/p>\n El-Sayed, who would be the country\u2019s first Muslim senator, has denounced antisemitism while fiercely criticizing Israel for its military operations in Gaza \u2014 a position that has been a frequent point of attack for both Republicans and supporters of Israel in his party.<\/p>\n Vance campaigning in other Republican states<\/p>\n Vice President JD Vance returned to Kansas to stump for Sen. Roger Marshall, who finds himself in a tight contest<\/a> with Democratic nominee and pastor Adam Hamilton. Hundreds of people were gathered inside the warehouse of a steel-fabricating company in north Topeka in a state where Democrats haven\u2019t won a Senate race since 1932.<\/p>\n Marshall, who has raised far less money than Hamilton, told the crowd that Trump is on the ballot, even if his name doesn\u2019t appear, because of how Democrats will thwart his agenda if they win control of Congress.<\/p>\n \u201cDemocrats are coming out like it\u2019s a presidential year,\u201d he said, calling on the GOP to match Democrats\u2019 energy.<\/p>\n Jace Sullivan, a 50-year-old electrician from Topeka who describes himself as \u201c85% Republican,\u201d said Trump supporters need to \u201ccircle the wagons\u201d and get out to vote.<\/p>\n Wearing a red \u201cJD Vance for President 2028\u2033 shirt, he said he thinks Trump is rightly working to keep Iran from getting nuclear weapons.<\/p>\n \u201cGas prices are high and it does suck, but it\u2019s a means to an end,\u201d Sullivan said.<\/p>\n Trump, at the Mississippi rally, said he had, in fact, expected gas prices to rise even higher than they had. <\/p>\n \u201cIt worked out fine and it\u2019ll be over soon,\u201d he said of the war with Iran.<\/p>\n Earlier, Vance was in Belgrade, Montana, to campaign with Republican Aaron Flint, who is facing Democrat Sam Forstag in the race for the state\u2019s 1st Congressional District, and Republican Senate candidate Kurt Alme.<\/p>\n Despite the visits to ruby red states, Sen. Tim Scott, who serves as chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, told The Associated Press Monday that GOP candidates are \u201cclosing very strongly\u201d in races across the country, including South Carolina, which Trump is set to visit for the second time in as many weeks to stump for GOP Sen. Darline Graham.<\/p>\n \u201cOne of the reasons why we will be in the majority is because he has invested the time and the energy on the campaign trail,\u201d Scott said on the sidelines of U.S. Rep. Russell Fry\u2019s 3rd Annual Freedom Fry event.<\/p>\n Trump to rally in another reliably Republican state<\/p>\n But it\u2019s Trump\u2019s visit to Mississippi that perhaps brings the midterm landscape into the sharpest relief with just a week of campaigning left. <\/p>\n To be sure, Hyde-Smith, who is vying for her second full term, remains the favorite in a state Trump won three times by an average of nearly 20 percentage points. <\/p>\n But Colom, a local prosecutor who would make history as Mississippi\u2019s first Black senator since post-Civil War Reconstruction, is looking to parlay inflation, Trump\u2019s lagging popularity and Hyde-Smith\u2019s mistakes into an upset. <\/p>\n Senate Democrats\u2019 super PAC has been a late entry in the contest<\/a>, with a $1.2 million investment. Mississippians have not chosen a new Democratic senator since 1947, and Democrats last won a Senate race there when that senator, the onetime segregationist John Stennis, won his last reelection in 1982.<\/p>\n In New York, meanwhile, one of the party\u2019s most vulnerable House members pulled from Trump\u2019s campaign playbook. Rep. Mike Lawler, who is in a tight race with Democrat Cait Conley in New York City\u2019s northern suburbs, manned a McDonald\u2019s drive-thru \u2014 mimicking something Trump did<\/a> two years ago, even as Lawler has tried to emphasize his independence from the president. <\/p>\n ___<\/p>\n Barrow reported from Atlanta and Colvin from New York. Associated Press reporters John Hanna in Topeka, Kansas; Meg Kinnard in Columbia, South Carolina; Laura Turbay in St. Paul, Minnesota; Jonathan J. Cooper in Phoenix; Seung Min Kim in Belgrade, Montana, and Anthony Izaguirre in New York contributed. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By BILL BARROW, SOPHIE BATES and JILL COLVIN CORINTH, Miss. 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