[Source: Reuters]

President Donald Trump devoted his final public remarks before Tuesday’s midterm elections to touting renovations of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, while Democrats sought to contain a rift in Michigan’s closely fought ​US Senate race.

Over the weekend, US Representative Haley Stevens, who lost the Michigan Democratic Senate primary to Abdul El-Sayed in a bitter contest, switched to backing Republican Mike Rogers and appeared with him at ‌a Detroit church.

The race is critical to Democrats’ hopes of ending the 53-47 Senate majority of Trump’s Republicans in Tuesday’s vote.

In his only public remarks scheduled for Monday, Trump, a former real-estate developer, spent more than 20 minutes discussing pipes, joints, caulking, granite resurfacing, algae and leaks at the belated reopening of the Washington reflecting pool.

“Does somebody have those pictures for me?” the president asked his aides before sharing illustrations of the “miles of joints” that had been replaced. “So we have a lot of great things planned for Washington, and I could get into the nation, ​but for that you don’t have enough time,” Trump said, also mentioning the grass at the White House, his new Marine One helipad, a golf course and a triumphal arch that faces a court challenge.

He made brief ​reference to the election, saying: “When you vote, remember: a party that hates America cannot be allowed to rule over the people who built our country.”

Nonpartisan analysts generally favor Democrats’ chances ⁠of winning a majority in the House of Representatives. Control of the Senate is more uncertain, with analysts seeing traditionally Republican-leaning states including Texas, Kansas and Iowa as competitive and giving Democrats more possible paths to a majority.

Control of either chamber ​would constrain Trump’s ability to pass legislation and empower Democrats to investigate his administration, while a Senate majority would also allow them to block his appointees to federal courts including the Supreme Court.

A Reuters/Ipsos poll completed on Monday found 46% of registered ​voters said they would vote for Democrats in congressional elections, compared to 38% who picked Republicans.

That 8-percentage-point advantage for Democrats was narrower than the 11 points found in the same poll a week earlier.