Trump doubled down ahead of the midterm elections

Ohio, Iowa, Florida, Pennsylvania: Donald Trump on Wednesday announced no less than four meetings to support Republican candidates in the US midterm elections in the final hours of the campaign.

Beset by investigations, the former president bowed out of the campaign for this election, during which Americans renewed 435 seats in the US House of Representatives and a third of the Senate.

Scheduled for November 8, two years after the next presidential election, the elections have been turned into a referendum on White House occupier Joe Biden.

But the election also serves as a life-size test of the political future of the Republican billionaire, who is publicly flirting with a 2024 bid.

To be sure, the battle for control of Congress is being waged in a handful of key states — the same states that are already at stake in the 2020 presidential election and that Donald Trump will carry in late October and early November.

Hours before the polls open, the former businessman will be in the hotly contested state of Ohio, where his son JD Vance is up against incumbent Democrat Tim Ryan.

Democratic President Joe Biden alternates between meetings with the working class and meetings with wealthy sympathizers to replenish his party’s coffers.