President Donald Trump has pored over the Constitution’s two-term limit, and he has a theory about why it shouldn’t keep him off the ballot.
Trump, 80, teased another White House run at a midterm campaign rally at Sioux Gateway Airport in Sioux City, Iowa, on Thursday, Oct. 22, 2026, where he was stumping for Republicans in the closing stretch before Election Day.
The riff built slowly, then arrived all at once. “They cheated us on the second one because we won it three times, so I think I have the right to run again. I think I have the right to run again because they cheated,” Trump said. He lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden, and there is no evidence that fraud altered the outcome.
The Line That Drew Boos
Trump set it up by telling the crowd he did not know who their next president would be, then delivered the bad news himself. “And I think the law says, I’m not 100 percent sure, but I think the law says that I’m not allowed to run again,” he said — a line that drew boos. He added that recent polling shows he would beat any rival, and he made clear he has gone looking for an opening in the text. “There’s not a lot of wiggle room,” he told the crowd.
There isn’t. The 22nd Amendment bars anyone from being elected president more than twice, and Trump was elected in 2016 and again in 2024, meaning a third campaign would run straight into the limit. In Sioux City he appeared to count Biden’s presidency as his own “second term,” called the results from then “horrible,” and repeated a claim that 25 million people entered the country without documentation under Biden. That figure is false; at most 10.2 million people crossed the border without documentation under Biden, according to federal border data.
He Already Owns the 2028 Hat
None of this is new territory for Trump, who hands out “Trump 2028” hats, has posted “Trump 2028” imagery on social media and wore a red one at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner in July. Supporters insist the whole bit is trolling aimed at Democrats, even as allies have periodically floated ways he could stay in power past the end of his current term. At other moments, Trump has talked about packing up in January 2029 and watching his successor from home. What made the Iowa version different was the justification attached to it.
The talk of a third campaign comes as his standing with voters sags. Trump hit a record-low 32 percent approval among U.S. adults in CNN/SSRS polling and registered 36 percent among likely voters in a New York Times/Siena University survey.
Why Iowa Gets Two Visits
The actual business of the night was Rep. Ashley Hinson, R-Iowa, who is running to fill the seat of retiring Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa. Trump has carried Iowa three times, winning it by 13 points in 2024, but several Republicans are in tight races this year, and Thursday’s rally is the first of at least two planned trips to the state before Election Day. Vice President JD Vance worked the same shift one state over, headlining a rally in Nebraska, where Democrats see a chance to flip a Senate seat.
Trump also pitched a financial-support plan meant to reassure farmers squeezed by rising prices, and he defended an ad from Ohio gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy that features the estranged mother of his opponent, Amy Acton. Trump said he told Ramaswamy to stick with it. Hinson said she thinks the ad should come down.
He called on Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., to resign from Congress, and the crowd answered with a “lock her up” chant. Federal agents searched Omar’s Washington, D.C., home on Oct. 12 as part of a criminal investigation; she denies the allegations.
Before he finished, Trump accepted one more credential he does not technically have to run for: state Rep. Joe Mitchell, who is running for Congress in Iowa’s 2nd Congressional District, walked onstage with a “Man of the Century Award” certificate, and Trump shook his hand and took it. He spoke for more than an hour and a half, and compared with recent campaign events, far fewer protesters interrupted him.
