US President Donald Trump has closed out the final weekend of a turbulent midterm election campaign with rallies in two states he had handily won in the past.
At the same time, Democrats began to fracture in the state of Michigan, risking their effort to retake the Senate.
US Representative Haley Stevens, who lost the Michigan Democrats’ Senate primary to Abdul El-Sayed in a bitterly contested race, publicly backed Republican candidate Mike Rogers and appeared with him at a Detroit church, threatening to worsen divisions in a state viewed as crucial to Democratic hopes of retaking the US Senate.
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Stevens’ decision to endorse Republican Rogers surprised party leaders, with some members, such as representative Debbie Dingell, saying that it created a “distraction” for Democrats.
Stevens said in a video posted to social media: “I don’t belong in Abdul’s campaign.”
The unexpected developments in Michigan lifted the mood of Trump’s Republicans before Tuesday’s midterms even as a federal judge dismissed a US Justice Department lawsuit seeking to block certification of election results in Alaska if Republican incumbent Senator Dan S Sullivan narrowly loses in the battleground state.
The Justice Department argued voters may be confused by the presence of a challenger named Daniel J Sullivan Jr on the same ballot.
The issue has roiled the campaign over the last several days after the New York Times reported that Democrat Mary Peltola’s campaign was involved in recruiting Daniel J Sullivan Jr. into the race as a spoiler.
The senator said on Sunday he would accept the results of Tuesday’s election even as the Trump administration presses a criminal investigation into the issue.
Peltola has denied involvement and Sullivan Jr has denied co-ordinating with Peltola’s campaign.
Trump was in Salina, Kansas, and Dubuque, Iowa, on Sunday.
Republicans in both states are fending off robust challenges from Democrats, threatening Republican majorities in the Senate while they’re already at risk in the House.
But in Iowa, Trump insisted Republicans were on the verge of sweeping victories on election day.
“We’re going to elect ‘America first’ Republicans up and down the line,” he said near the start of a speech that lasted two hours, long even for Trump who is known for his lengthy freewheeling rallies.
Later, he arrived tardy in Kansas, where Air Force One performed a theatrical flyover before landing for an outdoor rally at the airport.
Trump will make his closing pitch of the elections on Monday afternoon at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, pushing his problem-plagued efforts to repair it back into the spotlight on the eve of election day.
Thirty-five Senate seats and all 435 House of Representatives seats are on the ballot, with first results starting to flow on Wednesday morning in Australia.
