Trump's Options To Subvert The 2026 Midterms
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This election season you can streamline your news intake with up first. Our team of reporters and editors works overnight so you can start every morning with three stories you need to know in short episodes, 12-14 minutes long, to save you time and your sanity. Follow up first on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. This is Fresh Air. I'm Tanya Mosley.
This week voters across the country went to the polls for a handful of special and local elections, and the outcome is that Democrats won big and small races in what was seen as a referendum on President Donald Trump. But while people were looking at governors' races in New Jersey and Virginia and the mayoral race in New York, it was that ballot initiative in California that may have the biggest preview of what's to come leading up to the 2026 midterm elections. Proposition 50 allows California Democrats to redraw congressional maps to potentially win five more seats. The measure passed by a huge margin, after which Governor Gavin Newsom made it clear what he feels should happen next.
My call tonight in the spirit of Whitman, who talked about the powerful play, goes on. We all must contribute a verse. And so we need we need the state of Virginia. We need the state of Maryland. We need our friends in New York and Illinois and Colorado.
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