President Donald Trump kicked off a 32-day midterm campaign blitz in Durant, Oklahoma, on Thursday, arriving via a high-speed motorcade after bad weather grounded his aircraft. Trump urged voters to treat him as if he were on the ballot while stumping for Republican gubernatorial candidate Mike Mazzei.
President Donald Trump launched his pre-election travel schedule on Thursday with stops in Texas and Oklahoma to shore up lagging enthusiasm in safely Republican territory ahead of the November 3 midterm elections. Trump won Oklahoma by 34 percentage points in 2024 and Alabama by 31 points. The trip opened a 32-day campaign sprint aimed at preserving slim Republican majorities in Congress as the party defends competitive territory nationwide. He is joined in his push by JD Vance.
While the president planned to visit 17 states during the stretch, his opening itinerary focused on deeply reliable districts, traveling next to Mobile, Alabama, to support Republican Rhett Marques, followed by stops for Senator Jon Husted in Vandalia, Ohio, and Senator Dan Sullivan in Alaska.
Bad Weather Forces Motorcade to Race to Durant
Severe weather forced a change in travel plans when poor conditions grounded the president’s helicopter and aircraft in Texas, making standard air travel impossible ahead of his scheduled speech. The White House announced that bad weather forced Trump to travel by motorcade from Denton, Texas, to the Durant venue about 85 miles away.
The presidential motorcade made the trip at breakneck speed, with vehicles occasionally approaching 100 mph on the highway.
Traveling in the heavily armored presidential limousine, Trump posted on social media that the vehicle was moving faster than it had ever gone before. Traveling media accompanying the president reported that their press van reached 98 mph to keep pace with the motorcade before arriving at the venue nearly two hours late. Trump took the stage at approximately 7:50 p.m.
Trump Campaigns for Mike Mazzei in Oklahoma
In Oklahoma, Trump campaigned for Republican gubernatorial nominee Mike Mazzei who is running to succeed term-limited Governor Kevin Stitt against Democratic state House Minority Leader Cyndi Munson. Mazzei and the president aligned on multiple issues, though the gubernatorial candidate has publicly opposed importing foreign beef while supporting a Trump-backed smelter proposed for Inola ahead of the November election.
Ahead of the rally, Trump participated in an interview with local reporters, pointing to his administration’s economic record and addressing rising consumer costs while predicting that oil prices would soon decline significantly.
“Oil prices are going to be tumbling down, going to be lower than they were even before the war started. We had no choice; we had to stop Iran from having a nuclear weapon.”
President Donald Trump, via News 9
Trump also highlighted Oklahoma’s potential role in the federal Nuclear Lifecycle Innovation Campus program, for which the state signed a memorandum of understanding with the U.S. Department of Energy in July. The proposed campuses are designed to combine nuclear fuel fabrication, enrichment, used-fuel reprocessing, and waste disposition.
“I want them to pretend that I’m running.”
President Donald Trump, via News 9
Republicans Seek to Mobilize Base in Oklahoma
The push into Oklahoma comes as national Republicans seek to mobilize their base in reliably red states where net approval ratings for the president have declined since the beginning of his second term. Democratic Governors Association spokesperson Kevin Donohoe asserted that the campaign rally demonstrates Republicans are in full panic mode and that national Republicans are right to be worried about Mazzei’s competitive race.
Local preparations for the event included adjustments by area institutions. Stringtown Public Schools initially planned a school-sponsored field trip so students could witness a sitting president in person, with Superintendent David Morris calling it a unique educational opportunity before the district changed course.
The district ultimately canceled the sponsored trip to respect diverse community viewpoints, stating that individual families could choose to attend on their own time.