Big Island, Nebraska
The midterm elections were just two days away when a sitting president last visited Grand Island, the fourth-largest city in the middle of one of the nation’s most reliably Republican states.
It was November 5, 2006, and George W. Bush was invading red cities in red states in hopes of avoiding what would become the inevitable: a surge erasing Republican control of the House and Senate during the final two years of his term.
Today, President Donald Trump faces midterm music.
As Trump heads here Monday, to a state he won by 20 points two years ago, he seeks refuge — and ignites friendly faces — in the latest leg of his October red-state blitz.
The White House Itinerary chronicles how the final chapter of the fall campaign is taking place almost entirely in Trump country. In one week, the president’s trips from Texas to Oklahoma to Alabama to Ohio to Nebraska and back to Texas — all states he carried by double digits — underscore how Republicans are on defense as he urgently rallies his supporters to come to his party’s aid.
“Go out and vote,” Trump told a weekend crowd in Ohio. “If you do that, we’re going to win and we’re going to win big. And we’re going to shove it up their asses.”
With or without vulgarities, Trump has telegraphed his concerns about the midterm campaign over the last year. It is a rare moment of introspection that he faces the same challenges as all presidents, with the fight for control of Congress almost always bringing a reward to the party in power.
“Whether or not you have a great president, Republican or Democrat, they are not doing well in the midterms,” Trump lamented Friday evening during a stop in Mobile, Alabama. “I don’t know why. Nobody explained it.”
It remains an open question whether Trump’s sudden campaign, along with the Republican Party’s significant financial advantages in nearly every battleground state, will help Republicans avoid a similar fate now. Democrats also worry that they are spending too much on TV ads across the map.
In 2018, in Trump’s first midterm elections, Republicans lost the House but narrowly extended their hold on the Senate. But with the economy looking much grimmer and a lingering war in Iran, even many Republicans are pessimistic about November.
“This is a five-alarm fire,” a Republican congressman from a state Trump visited recently told CNN, asking not to be identified to avoid alienating the White House. “We always welcome the president, but I don’t know if he’s aware of the feelings that exist here.”
When Trump arrives at the Nebraska State Fairgrounds in Grand Island, he will enter the state’s 3rd Congressional District, which he won with 76% of the vote in 2024. It is the most Republican part of Nebraska, covering 80 of the state’s 93 counties, where cattle ranching and agriculture are the lifeblood of the economy.
The president will not travel to Nebraska’s two other congressional districts, which are highly competitive, particularly the 2nd District to fill incumbent Rep. Don Bacon’s seat. The 2nd – which includes Omaha and is sometimes known as the “blue dot” – is one of only three districts in the country that Trump lost in 2024 and represented by a Republican.
Trump’s rally is aimed at giving a boost to Republican Sen. Pete Ricketts, who is facing a challenge from Dan Osborn, a former union leader and independent candidate. It’s a competitive race that is causing anxiety among Republicans in their effort to maintain their majority in the Senate, where there is no margin for error as the battleground map expands.
“There is no doubt that high fuel prices are putting a strain on the budget of every Nebraska family,” Ricketts told CNN, adding that he welcomed the president’s visit. “It’s one of the things I hear when I travel around the state.”
Osborn is running again two years after losing by less than 7 percentage points to Republican Sen. Deb Fischer. This time he faced no Democratic opposition, with the party intentionally withdrawing in hopes of defeating Ricketts.
“The significant difference between today and my campaign in 2024 is the war in Iran and the costs are skyrocketing,” Osborn told CNN. “In every public meeting, it’s usually the first thing that comes up, it’s the cost of living. It’s difficult.”
The president’s decision in August to allow 300,000 tons of ground beef to be imported into the United States with reduced tariffs also faced fierce opposition from Nebraska cattle ranchers.
The policy, which Trump said was intended to reduce the cost of beef in grocery stores, also sparked controversy in Iowa, Kansas and Texas, the remainder of the top four beef-producing states. All four are running competitive Senate elections in states that Trump has won three times.
Whether Trump will address the issue will be closely watched in the region.
“This harvest season, with diesel nearly doubling, export markets drying up, rural hospitals struggling and insane tariffs continuing to hit our pockets, Trump would be wise to do his real job instead of breaking every promise he’s made to Nebraskans,” said Jane Kleeb, chairwoman of the Nebraska Democratic Party.
“A disaster on our hands”
During his weekend campaign stops, Trump continued to show a disconnect between how he describes the economy and how many Americans experience it. He made no mention of rising costs but said: “With the hottest country in the world, this is America’s golden age.” »
He is working to make the November election a contrast with the Democrats rather than a referendum on him and the administration’s policies.
It follows a familiar pattern from his 2018 campaign trips during the midterm elections of his first term: visiting red states filled with admirers, hoping to minimize political damage by stoking his detractors.
“If the Democrats win, you will end up in a 1929-style Great Depression,” Trump told a crowd in Ohio Saturday night. “We will have disaster on our hands.”
Enthusiasm was building in Grand Island, a town of 53,000, as his arrival was announced. Trump won Hall County, which includes the city, by 37 points in 2024. Local media recalled the last time Air Force One landed at Nebraska’s Central Regional Airport in 2006. In that speech, Bush warned Republicans against falling into a gloomy state of mind.
“I’m sure you’ve heard the same predictions I have,” Bush said. “The prognosticators have already decided the outcome of this election before the good people of Nebraska have voted.”
A decade before Trump’s rallies began to leave their mark on modern politics, Bush spent the final four days of that campaign also traveling through Montana, Nevada, Missouri, Iowa, Colorado, Kansas, Florida and Arkansas.
Republicans then held all three House seats in Nebraska. But then they lost their majority in Congress – 31 seats in the House of Representatives and six in the Senate – during a midterm election campaign that Bush later described as “a dull shock.”
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