At a Tuesday event in Sparrows Point, Maryland, President Donald Trump tied a new multi-billion-dollar defense contract to a warning about the weeks before the midterms. He told the crowd that people might see something they do not expect on November 3. He then said voters should look for “some big surprises” before Election Day.
“We have some big surprises coming up in another few weeks, right Russ?” The Daily Mail quotes Trump. The person he turned to was Russell Vought, who runs the U.S. Office of Management and Budget. Trump gave no details on what those surprises would be.
Trump kept the focus on Vought for a moment longer. “He’s gonna be one of the very important people in the history of our country, in my opinion. He’s got some great things happening,” he said. He then named other Cabinet members in the crowd, including Pete Hegseth. Vought co-authored Project 2025 and wrote a transition playbook for Trump to use in the first six months of his second term.
Senate and House math sits beside a 32 percent approval rating
The Maryland stop comes while Trump is holding a string of rallies aimed at keeping Republican control of both chambers. The Daily Mail said party leaders are worried about losses even in states that usually vote Republican. Democrats have been favored for some time to win the House, where the Republican edge is five seats. Taking the Senate would require a gain of four seats, and Democrats would still have to hold seats of their own.
Trump has said he expects Republicans to win. A new Reuters/Ipsos poll put his approval at 32%. According to Decision Desk HQ, the Democrats have a 75% chance of winning the House. The Senate race appears to be more competitive, according to Decision Desk’s Senate projections, but the Democrats are still ahead with a 56% chance of success. Trump’s approval has hit a new low as he campaigns in deep red states, with the GOP facing the prospect of losing the House and Senate.
CNN listed several moves it treated as signs of strain in the Republican effort. One was a switch on ads Trump had called “love me” ads: they had been set to use taxpayer money and will now be paid for by Trump. CNN also pointed to a change of position on mail-in voting and to stops this past week in Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Alabama.
Nebraska is one of those stops. Independent Dan Osborn is running against Republican Senator Pete Ricketts, and Trump has campaigned there for the incumbent.
The Daily Mail cast that visit as a sign of worry in a state Republicans usually count on. Separately, the outlet reported that Trump attacked South Carolina Democrat Annie Andrews, who is running in a strongly Republican state against Darline, the sister of the late Lindsey Graham.
Alaska uses ranked-choice voting, and Democrat Mary Peltola, a former congresswoman, is challenging Senator Dan Sullivan there. A New York Times/Siena poll out this week had Peltola ahead, 50 percent to 43 percent. In Iowa, Republican Congresswoman Ashley Hinson is asking Democrats to cross party lines in her Senate race. A recent ad included a Democratic supporter, and a campaign press release cited two bills she worked on that former President Joe Biden signed.
The Daily Mail also described weaker ground for Republicans with Hispanic voters, a bloc that helped Trump win in 2024 after large Republican gains with those voters that year. Trump has pushed back on unfavorable polling as the midterms approach, such as when he told an Ohio rally crowd the polls were wrong and asked them to pretend he was on the ballot.
The outlet linked the drop to the administration’s mass deportation operations. Florida Republican Maria Elvira Salazar, whose district covers heavily Hispanic Miami-Dade County, put out an ad last month criticizing parts of Trump’s immigration agenda. The Daily Mail said the ad suggested some constituents may see those policies as too harsh. Trump answered by calling Salazar “out of line.”
Published: Oct 7, 2026 08:00 am