This is an adapted excerpt from the Oct. 19 episode of “All In with Chris Hayes.”
There are now only two weeks until Election Day, and it is pretty clear that all of President Donald Trump’s schemes up to this point have not worked out the way he wanted. The president has run through a laundry list of plots to tilt the election in his party’s favor, and Plans A through D have not gone well.
First, there was the gerrymandering plot, which began well over a year ago, when Trump pressured Republican statehouses to undergo unprecedented midcycle redistricting to draw maps that heavily favored their party.
The folks who actually run elections are being forced to batten down the hatches
But here is the thing about gerrymanders: They’re meant to shore up a party during a strong-to-neutral environment. They are not designed to survive wave elections. And if the polling is correct, this may be a wave election.
In Texas, for example, it looks like Tejano music star Bobby Pulido has a real shot at flipping the newly redrawn 15th Congressional District away from Republican Rep. Monica De La Cruz. This was supposed to be the crown jewel of the new Texas map, but Pulido has real star power, which he demonstrated at a huge rally over the weekend, and he has been running a strong campaign.
In fact, Republican House Majority Whip Tom Emmer of Minnesota conceded earlier this month that his party has already given up hope on winning every redrawn district.
“We’re not gonna win all 13 of those redistricted seats,” he told Axios.
Things have gotten increasingly desperate since that plan backfired. Republicans have boasted a massive funding advantage, thanks to billionaires like Elon Musk pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into races to support the party.
However, over the last few weeks, several polls have shown Republicans now face some much more competitive races in places they least expected. So they are having to spend all over, including in places like deep-red Kansas, Nebraska and even Wyoming. But ad spending can only go so far before voters just tune it out.
The next plan was basically just to try to bribe the voters directly. Remember Trump’s big flop of a midterm convention, where he promised to give every single American adult $5,000 each, but only if Republicans kept Congress? (Republicans, of course, currently control Congress.) But polling showed the idea is incredibly unpopular, and now Trump only half-heartedly brings it up on occasion.
I’m not sure he is convincing anyone, nor am I sure that Trump’s rallies in deep-red states are going to rescue his party — which was the final plan, before he resorted to election interference.
First was his executive order to seize mail-in ballots and use the United States Postal Service to decide whose vote counts and whose does not. Thankfully, that was effectively put on hold by the courts.
So, two weeks out, it is all legal recriminations and voter intimidation.
Last week, the Trump administration raided the home of Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota. On the one hand, Trump obviously hates to see a Black Muslim woman from Africa in a position of authority. But I think his attempts to denaturalize and deport the congresswoman go further than just racism. He wants to frighten voters. He wants people of color — and especially naturalized citizens who might vote blue — to stay home on Nov. 3.
Trump’s Department of Justice is also suing California over utterly noncredible claims of widespread noncitizen voting, because officials refused to put a shady thumb drive into government computers to “confirm” the citizenship of voters. On Monday, the administration ramped up that bogus fraud investigation. It’s now threatening jail time and doing predawn raids across the state.
Meanwhile, the folks who actually run elections are being forced to batten down the hatches. The Trump administration recently threatened Utah Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson, a Republican, with a DOJ investigation for not going along with its ridiculous claims of noncitizen voting.
But Henderson has shown she will not be intimidated.
“In the past two elections that I oversaw as lieutenant governor, the threats were all external,” she told “60 Minutes” on Sunday. “Non-state actors, cybersecurity threats and other things. But now we also have threats coming from within our own government.”
The threat is coming from the federal government. Principled folks of both parties held the line in 2020, the last time Trump tried to steal an election. Now, they are being put to the test again.
A bipartisan group of state attorneys general apparently isn’t buying OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s insistence that “the world should accept some bad things happening” in order to reap the benefits of artificial intelligence technology.
Amid allegations that OpenAI’s chatbot, ChatGPT, has helped fuel school shootings and teen suicides, at least eight states are suing the company, accusing it of violating consumer protection laws and putting young users in danger.
Eight US states sued OpenAI Wednesday, alleging the ChatGPT maker is harming children en masse.
Kansas, Arizona, Montana, Iowa and four others allege the company’s products carried out “willful, dangerous, reckless and unlawful conduct” by coaxing children into harming themselves.
“OpenAI is hurting kids and they are lying to Iowans,” Brenna Bird, the attorney general for Iowa, said in a statement. “OpenAI claims ChatGPT is safe while it’s giving dangerous medical advice, encouraging people to hurt others, and coaching people to commit suicide – all while pretending to be their fake friend.”
The lawsuits, which seek monetary damages and restrictions and court-imposed changes to how OpenAI builds its AI models, were also filed in Arkansas, Idaho, Nebraska and West Virginia. An OpenAI spokesperson told The Guardian that the company has “built industry-leading age-specific protections into our product that many other AI products lack.”
To be clear, such efforts by states have run into roadblocks. For example, Elon Musk recently won a partial victory when his AI company secured a preliminary injunction temporarily blocking a Minnesota law from going into effect that would ban AI tools that generate nonconsensual sexual imagery, including of children.
Nonetheless, the OpenAI lawsuit shows that several states are being rather relentless in pursuing AI regulations — no matter the obstacles.
This is the Oct. 20, 2026, edition of “The Tea, Spilled by Morning Joe” newsletter.Subscribe hereto get it delivered straight to your inbox Monday through Friday.
Hello, “Morning Joe” family!
We love hearing from you. Here’s what was on your mind this week. As always, you can write to us anytime.
MAILBAG
Joe — it’s so frustrating to see good friends of mine and family be so dismissive of the incompetence and corruption in both Trump administrations. Their rationale is “it’s nothing new and all politicians are corrupt.” As a result they don’t pay attention to the daily goings-on in D.C. Whatever happened to the concept of an informed electorate?
— Kevin H., Wilmington, N.C.
Kevin, I share your frustration. So many friends I have known ignore inconvenient facts while chasing conspiracy theories that make them feel better about supporting Donald Trump.
The facts are not on their side.
When I ask where they get their information, they tell me that they don’t follow the news because media outlets can’t be trusted. But when I push harder, I often learn they are fed a steady stream of lies daily from false posts on Facebook, from websites like Epoch Times run by Chinese religious cults, and from other conspiracy-fueled outlets that have no editors, ethical guidelines, or journalistic standards.
The latest Fox News poll brings welcome news: Corruption is listed by voters as the most important issue in the 2026 election. With costs exploding for groceries, gas, diesel, healthcare, and rent, Americans are paying closer attention to politicians who use their position in government to enrich themselves and their families.
That is bad news for Donald Trump.
Considering Trump’s reckless behavior towards EVERYTHING, if the Democrats manage to flip the House and Senate, what can they do to thaw Trump’s efforts to undermine our democracy, the Ukrainian war, etc.?
— Doug B.
Depending on their margin of victory, Democrats should look for opportunities to work with Republicans to address corruption, the cost of living crisis, and Trump‘s continued support for Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
They should start with the most unifying issue: Ukraine.
Republicans and Democrats should pass bipartisan bills regarding Ukraine with veto-proof margins. Such legislation could aggressively support the freedom fighters’ efforts to push back against the Russian invasion.
Many Republican senators are horrified that their president is eagerly working with a former KGB spy to undermine Western democracy. If Democrats win big next month, expect GOP lawmakers to line up in support of Ukrainian funding measures that could have a powerful impact on the war’s outcome.
Republicans and Democrats can also drive down prices by retaking control of their tariff authority and Congress’s power to declare war.
For two years, Republican majorities have shamefully abdicated those duties to Donald Trump, who has started wars and levied tariffs on countries for the most reckless of reasons. Those wars and tariffs end up working as taxes on middle-class Americans and others who can’t afford higher costs at the grocery store or gas pump.
I would also expect Republicans to work with Democratic majorities on anti-corruption measures aimed at stopping the Trump family from continuing to cash in on public service. Right now, corruption is an issue that unites members of both parties who have been horrified or ashamed by the practices of the president and his family over the past 20 months.
Also expect much activity from the oversight committees in both the House and Senate, as they work to uncover any pay-to-play schemes hatched from the start of Trump’s second administration.
Trump has been talking to Putin a lot lately and giving him relief from sanctions and buying diesel fuel from Russia. With only two weeks for the election, what do you think about the possibility that Trump is having Putin disrupt the midterm elections in return for favors?
— Pat M., Pittsburgh
Despite the lies spread by Donald Trump and his supporters, Vladimir Putin worked aggressively to influence American elections in 2016, 2020, and 2024. I have no doubt that he is using his state authority to spread disinformation across the United States today and every day up until the 2026 election.
Putin’s war on democracy has not just been fought on the front lines in Ukraine. It has also been waged through cyberwarfare and misinformation to twist policy debates and shape political outcomes across Europe and the Americas. Unfortunately, these efforts have worked all too well, as a confederacy of dunces has willingly lined up to play useful idiots for Russia.
Here’s hoping that all of that will be exposed by Democrats if they can take control of Congress.
Joe, leaders fall into two categories: those who appeal to our basest instincts and those who inspire us to become better versions of ourselves. Who has inspired you to become better than you would have been without their influence?
— Gary B., Greensboro, N.C.
Thank you so much for your great question, Gary.
Yesterday, “Morning Joe” ran a package on the life and times of Ethel Kennedy as told by her daughter Kerry. Watching her story and those images flash across the screen reminded me how much Bobby Kennedy influenced my decision to get into politics.
After reading Arthur Schlesinger Jr.’s biography of the senator, I found myself inspired by a man who dared to make a difference — even if his worldview was different than mine.
I was most moved by what Bobby Kennedy did the night Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated on April 4, 1968. Kennedy was campaigning for the presidency in Indianapolis that day, but wanted to take a detour into the inner city to tell Black voters the terrible news.
The Indianapolis Police Department urged him to stay away, fearing there would be riots and bloodshed downtown. Kennedy persisted, and later that evening, a police escort guided him and his driver to the edge of the neighborhood before stopping and turning around.
Kennedy’s car made its way to his destination, and he got out to address his audience:
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I’m only going to talk to you just for a minute or so this evening, because I have some very sad news for all of you and people who love peace all over the world; and that is that Martin Luther King was shot and was killed tonight in Memphis, Tennessee.
Martin Luther King dedicated his life to love and to justice between fellow human beings. He died in the cause of that effort. In this difficult day, in this difficult time for the United States, it’s perhaps well to ask what kind of a nation we are and what direction we want to move in.
For those of you who are black and are tempted to fill with hatred and mistrust of the injustice of such an act against all white people, I would only say that I can also feel in my own heart the same kind of feeling. I had a member of my family killed by a white man.
But we have to make an effort to go beyond these difficult times.
My favorite poet was Aeschylus. And he once wrote:
Even in our sleep,
pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart,
until in our own despair,
against our will,
comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.
What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence and lawlessness, but is love, and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or whether they be black.
So I ask you tonight to return home to say a prayer for the family of Martin Luther King, but more importantly, to say a prayer for our own country.
We can do well in this country. We will have difficult times.
But the vast majority of white people and the vast majority of black people in this country want to live together, want to improve the quality of our life, and want justice for all human beings that abide in our land.
And let’s dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world. Let us dedicate ourselves to that, and say a prayer for our country and for our people.
Thank you very much.
Remembering that night in a 2007 essay for Washington Monthly, Evan Thomas wrote, “As news of King’s death spread through poor neighborhoods across the country, riots broke out in 110 cities, killing 39 people and injuring 2,500. But in the city of Indianapolis, where Kennedy had spoken, it was quiet.”
This is an adapted excerpt from the Oct. 18 episode of “Connect with Jacob Soboroff.”
According to a new Fox News poll, government corruption has now edged out inflation as voters’ top concern: 60% say they’re “extremely concerned” about the issue, compared with 58% who say the same about inflation.
America’s worry about government corruption shouldn’t surprise anyone who’s been following this administration. And millions of Americans are still struggling to pay for the basics while the scandals keep raining down at our collective expense. At this rate, it feels like we’re seeing a new scandal or two every week.
Case in point: Last week federal agents carried out a raid of Minnesota Democrat Rep. Ilhan Omar’s home at 6 a.m., taking with them boxes marked “Seized Property Evidence.” They also took her phone and passport.
You don’t need an actual conviction; you just need the performance: the raid, the headlines, the harassment of anyone who speaks out.
The search warrant listed potential violations involving immigration fraud, false statements in immigration proceedings, and conspiracy; but it didn’t identify any alleged crimes that appear to relate to Omar’s financial disclosures. Three people familiar with the matter told The Washington Post that the investigation centers around claims that Omar or her late father may have lied on decades-old immigration paperwork to secure legal status. Omar became a naturalized citizen in 2000, when she was 17 — nearly three decades ago.
According to U.S. officials and other people familiar with the probe who spoke to The Wall Street Journal, the goal is to build a case to revoke the congresswoman’s citizenship and eventually deport her.
This isn’t the first time the Trump administration has tried to make her citizenship an issue. The Post reports that in 2019, during President Donald Trump’s first term, immigration officials examined many of these same questions, including Omar’s birth date and her father’s military record in Somalia. At the time, officials found insufficient evidence of wrongdoing to warrant a full investigation.
The Wall Street Journal reported the Biden administration also looked into a similar tip but did not move forward because it lacked evidence.
Former immigration officials say it’s highly unusual for an investigation like this to involve a search warrant, particularly when the government already has the immigration records.
So why raid her home? Like so much else with this administration, the spectacle and the intimidation appear to be the point. Not to mention the fact that we are about three weeks out from an election, and Omar is on the ballot.
On Friday, Omar’s lawyers blasted the raid in a letter to prosecutors, writing, “This vindictive, retributive, and politically motivated criminal investigation into one of the President’s chief congressional critics violates Representative Omar’s constitutional rights and threatens the separation of powers.” They say the search deviated from the specific procedures mandated by the judge who approved the warrant and violated specific restrictions meant to protect Omar’s legislative work.
According to her attorneys, agents were required to give them a copy of the warrant and to contact the House of Representatives’ own lawyers before conducting the search. They say agents did neither. The letter also states that Omar was prevented from contacting her lawyers for more than an hour after the search began.
A Justice Department spokesperson disputed the lawyers’ claim and said the letter was “riddled with false allegations and inaccuracies.”
In a statement on X, Omar said she would “not be silenced.” Adding, “This is just the latest escalation in [Trump’s] campaign of political intimidation.”
This is the authoritarian playbook at work. You don’t need an actual conviction; you just need the performance of the raid, the headlines, the harassment of anyone who speaks out. The investigations and the headlines become a substitute for due process. The spectacle itself sends a message: guilty until proven innocent.
If they can do this to Omar, the administration can do it to anyone. Omar is a sitting member of Congress. She has lawyers, a national platform and constitutional protections for her legislative work. If a sitting lawmaker can have her passport seized over paperwork dating back to her teenage years, what chance does a naturalized nurse in Minneapolis have? Or a cab driver in Chicago?
Look at the calendar. The raid on Omar’s home comes just over three weeks before the midterms. Historically, the Justice Department has treated searches involving political candidates and their associates as precisely the kind of step to avoid in the 60 days before an election. Omar’s lawyers say this search violated that policy. The department claims prosecutors cleared it through an internal review.
On the same day as the raid on Omar’s home, Trump mentioned her name at a rally in Ohio while his supporters chanted “deport.” Earlier that day, he claimed he had “nothing to do” with the search.
On the one hand, voters told Fox News their biggest concern is government corruption. On the other, this is an administration that wants you to worry about decades-old paperwork about a teenager’s age.
It appears the Trump White House response to growing concerns about corruption is to engage in more of it.
This is the Oct. 19, 2026, edition of “The Tea, Spilled by Morning Joe” newsletter.Subscribe hereto get it delivered straight to your inbox Monday through Friday.
“If the United States will officially take the side of Russia … we will not prevail and we will not be able to stand.”
—
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on “Meet the Press” after President Donald Trump waived sanctions on Russia
In 1983, Ronald Reagan stood before a room of evangelicals in Orlando, Florida, and denounced the Soviet Union as an “evil empire.”
Donald Trump has obviously taken the former KGB agent’s side over Reagan’s.
On Friday, the president waived bipartisan sanctions against Russia that he signed into law last month. He called it a “very simple” decision.
It’s an easy choice if you want America’s enemies to win.
Trump then approved the Russian diesel deal. Then the slowing of Starlink over Ukraine. That’s been followed by a week of non-denial denials from a president who bizarrely insists that no one is responsible.
The Keystone Cops routine would be funny if the consequences weren’t so deadly. Russia is moving closer to winning in Ukraine and setting their sights on the rest of Europe.
Even The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page now calls Trump “Mr. Putin’s best friend in the world.”
What an October surprise, and what bad news for Republicans.
GOP candidates are scrambling to distance themselves from the Trump-Putin alliance while losing support over the high cost of living and the low approval ratings haunting Trump.
Yet through it all, the president can’t quit Putin — one of the most ruthless war criminals on the planet. Left behind are those freedom fighters who continue to defend Western democracy on the front lines in Ukraine.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy warns that they cannot continue fighting if America takes Russia’s side.
Tragically, Donald Trump already has.
CHARTS OF THE DAY
Source: Economist/YouGov poll of 1,403 registered U.S. voters conducted Oct. 10-12, 2026. Margin of error: ± 3.5%
ON THIS DATE
On Oct. 19, 2025, thieves broke into the Louvre and made off with more than $100 million in 19th century-era jewels, setting the stage for a year seemingly rife with art heists.
Kiran Ridley/Getty Images A French forensics officer examines a cut window and balcony at the Louvre Museum in Paris following a robbery on Oct. 19, 2025.
WHAT THEY SAID
Jonathan Lemire on the midterms
“The fact that we’re talking about the Senate at all is instructive. The House has always been favored to lean Democratic, but the Senate is a true toss-up. Eight months ago, those seats weren’t even in play, but now they feel tantalizingly within Democrats’ grasp.”
David Ignatius on Trump’s decision to import Russian diesel fuel
“It’s a betrayal of Ukraine — courageous allied people facing the worst winter of their lives — for the frailest of political reasons. There’s no evidence to support the idea that this diesel deal will make a difference in the prices people pay. If anything, it’s making Trump more vulnerable politically, as Republicans pull back from him.”
Eugene Robinson on tech billionaires
“A handful of absurdly wealthy men have ridiculous control over a democracy, and we’re pretending that that’s OK. That’s not the way this is supposed to work, but there you have it: You go to Elon Musk for our national security concerns and to Mark Zuckerberg for our First Amendment rights. We’ve dug a hole for ourselves as a country that it’s going to take a while to get out of.”
CLEVELAND — Every morning, Dwight Bullard pulls into the station selling the cheapest gas he can find and puts exactly $100 worth into the rented box truck he uses to haul tires around Northeast Ohio.
On the August morning MS NOW was riding with him, regular was $3.92 a gallon.
“There goes my $100,” he said, watching the pump click off. It didn’t even fill the tank. Six months earlier, the same day’s driving had cost him $60 or $70.
He did the math in the truck: Add in the $600 for the rental truck, and the weekly cost of doing what he describes as the best job he’s had is $1,100. Do that every week for a year, and it’s way more than what he is trying to save to buy a truck of his own.
Ask him who he blames for the high price of gas, and he doesn’t hesitate.
“Trump! I blame Trump, man,” he said. Then, a beat later: “Well, that’s what I hear. I ain’t really into politics, but I know it’s got something to do with the shit he’s doing over there.”
Dwight Bullard (right) delivering tires in Northeast Ohio in August 2026.
MS NOW walked him through the data: the war with Iran, the Strait of Hormuz, a fifth of the world’s oil, a global market that sets the price at a gas pump in Cleveland, his hometown.
Dwight is 34, with two daughters under 10. He drives the tire route until about 4 p.m., goes home to shower and on some days works a second job running food at a Mexican restaurant until 11 or midnight. And then he’s up at 5:30 in the morning to do it again.
One thing he has not done is connect his situation to the folks in elected office in his state or Washington, D.C. He’s also pretty sure he has only voted once in his life: in 2012, for Barack Obama. He did not vote in 2024.
“Most of the people I know, we ain’t really voting,” he said. “My homeboys, we just making shit happen. Living day to day.”
Does he regret sitting out the last presidential election? “Considering where we are now, hell yeah.”
MS NOW went to Cleveland to get some time with a group of voters whom both parties talk about constantly, but who almost nobody is spending a lot of time or money talking to: young Black men who have stopped voting, or never started.
One of the races that could decide control of the Senate is happening in Ohio, where Democratic former Sen. Sherrod Brown is trying to win back his old seat from Republican Jon Husted. The polling has shown the race consistently within a few points, and the math on who could decide it is not that complicated.
A voter-file analysis by HIT Strategies, a public opinion research firm, found more than 100,000 registered Black voters in Ohio who sat out the last three federal elections. The firm also found, through focus groups, that these voters were more open to being mobilized this year, pushed by the cost of living and souring views of President Donald Trump.
In June, the Ohio Legislative Black Caucus Foundation released a study with a finding that should stop Democrats cold: In the 2022 midterms, 603,000 eligible Black voters in Ohio didn’t cast a ballot. That is more than twice the margin by which JD Vance won his Senate seat that year.
Shayla L. Davis, who runs the foundation, said she was “heartbroken” when she got the findings back.
Shayla L. Davis, President and CEO of the Ohio Legislative Black Caucus Foundation.MS NOW
Sitting in the UnBar Cafe, a Black-owned coffee shop, she noted that in 2023, the Republican-controlled state passed one of the most restrictive voter ID laws in the country. Essentially, it’s a “use it or lose it” rule that strips people from the voter rolls for not voting. That, combined with the apathy she is seeing especially with young Black men, helps explain to Davis why what was once a swing state has so far failed to regain that status.
“My own son, he’s 28 years old. He stopped voting,” said Davis, formerly a state representative and city councilwoman in the Cleveland suburb of Garfield Heights. “He’s cynical. He doesn’t believe that anyone is standing up for what he believes. He believes that all the rhetoric is performative and that everyone is all the same. And that breaks my heart, but I can understand exactly where he’s coming from.”
Her son grew up in a house where his mother’s name was constantly on the ballot. She remembers the election night party she threw in 2008 and him running out of his bedroom, a kid full of joy that Obama had won. That’s the moment she keeps trying to get him to remember.
There’s been a lot of ink spilled about the gender divide in the Black community. Black women are more consistent voters, and more consistently punching their cards for Democrats. Those numbers aren’t actually that stark though: 92% of Black women voted for Harris in 2024 compared with 78% of Black men.
It’s the generational divide that is more worrying for people like Davis. Younger Black voters are just hitting the ballot box less compared with the generations before them.
Her concern is that there is just a lack of connective tissue to the days when Black people didn’t have the right to vote. Pair that with the lack of movement on issues young Black voters care about, and it’s a recipe for apathy.
“Older Black voters are going to show up and vote,” Davis said. “It’s a generational gap of what they actually experienced. My son never experienced any of [the Civil Rights Movement]. He only hears the stories and he’s hearing the stories third-party. He’s hearing it from me, who didn’t experience that either.”
There are groups trying to change that, like Cleveland VOTES, a nonpartisan civic organization that three years ago started a seasonal, part-time canvassing team it calls The Squad. There are just five of them, but last year they logged more than 114,000 contacts.
MS NOW walked with them on a Wednesday afternoon on the East Side, in a stretch of the city where co-founder Erika Anthony says turnout is lowest. They weren’t asking people who they were voting for. They were handing out flyers for “Carnivote,” an event with free food, backpacks for kids and a round of “Democracy Jeopardy.”
Erika Anthony, co-founder of Cleveland VOTES.MS NOW
Jerry Pena, who manages the group and is its only man, explained the strategy.
“You go to people’s doors, you quickly approach them with voting, the conversation shuts down,” he said. “It’s over because they’ve seen what their vote does, right? It’s disappointed them over and over again.
“The conversation needs to change more to ‘What do you want to see in the future in this neighborhood? How can we get there?’ But if you start with voting, done deal.”
Jerry Pena, a member of Cleveland VOTES, in August 2026.MS NOW
At 2 p.m. on a weekday, when door-knockers might expect to find retirees — older Black voters who may not need a ton of convincing — they kept running into young Black men.
Outside a convenience store, a 29-year-old who gave only his first name, Robert, said he hasn’t voted for anyone in years. “I just didn’t feel like nobody deserved it,” he said.
He added that nobody, not a Democrat or a Republican, knocked on his door in 2024. Then, unprompted, he started talking about policy. He’d recently been in jail, where “they treat you like animals,” and he couldn’t understand why people were still locked up on weed charges in a state where recreational possession was legal.
He had strong, specific views about the carceral system. He knew exactly what would make it better. Robert had just never connected those ideas to the people who decide what the laws actually look like.
When MS NOW described Robert to Anthony afterward, she said that is exactly why Cleveland VOTES started: She and her co-founder were working with people coming home from prison and kept hearing the same disconnect.
“We would say things like ‘Do you want to have the ability to influence who sits on the [judicial] bench?’” she said. “When we started painting the picture for folks, they’re like, ‘Oh, I have the ability to do that.’”
The biggest takeaway isn’t that these voters are tapped out — it’s that almost no one has even tried to tap them in. Every single Black man MS NOW met that day said some version of “No one has tried to convince me to vote.” Nobody is paying these men any attention.
“We as a country have gotten way too hyperfocused on the electoral cycle versus thinking about the holistic nature of community building,” Anthony said. “There are policy decisions being made every day, locally, countywide, statewide and at the federal level. And if we’re only talking to folks two weeks, three weeks before an election and just expecting them to magically open their eyes and see why this is valuable to them. [By] then, we’ve already missed the boat.”
Which raises the question of who exactly is asking. Davis said that since her foundation’s report came out on Juneteenth, one federal official’s office has reached out. Neither Senate campaign had called.
“They don’t have to call me,” Davis said. ”Just pick the report up and do something about it.”
Brown’s campaign says it is doing that. According to a campaign aide, Brown started his outreach earlier than any of his other campaigns ever had. He has met with Black faith leaders in Ohio cities since last fall, held roundtables with Black men, hosted “pledge to vote” events with Divine Nine organizations and spent $250,000 on ads airing on radio stations with predominantly Black audiences.
Husted’s campaign initially agreed to meet with MS NOW for this story, then canceled due to a scheduling conflict and did not immediately respond to emailed questions about what efforts his team has made to reach out to Black voters.
MS NOW sat down with Dwight, the tire and restaurant hustler, and his mother, Kari Jones, who is the kind of voter campaigns dream about. She passed out flyers for a city council candidate at 10 years old. Her neighbors call her for political advice. Her mother and daughter call her from the voting booth to ask who they should pick.
She has made sure that Dwight has stayed registered for years. She has not been able to persuade him to do anything with that registration since 2012.
Kari Jones and Dwight Bullard in August 2026.MS NOW
What changed for Dwight between 2012, when he said casting a ballot for Obama “felt like I did something,” and now?
“I guess I never really saw a change,” he said. “I never really seen what it did firsthand to people, so I just never really cared to vote. Like, it is what it is. They’re going to do what they’re going to do.”
Thinking on it, he realized he and his friends do actually talk about politics. All the time. “We sit [in the barbershop] and talk about the rent, the streets, that big-ass pothole on Dunham. We talk about that but we don’t talk about the source of the problem.”
Something had clearly shifted. After that morning truck run, Dwight went back to the shop and a co-worker asked what the MS NOW cameras were there for. He explained, then asked whether his friend voted. Not really, the co-worker said, but he did vote in local elections.
“I’m like, ‘Damn, he’s my age,’” Dwight said, adding: “When it comes to anything else, talking Marvel movies, music, we can relate. So when I heard him say that, I’m like — makes sense.”
Jones had been waiting for this. For her son to make these connections.
There’s a tree in her yard that Dwight spent a year telling her to get the city to cut down, afraid it would fall on her house, or her car or one of his kids. The city finally came to do it that morning.
“Who did you think was going to do it?” she asked.
“The city.”
“And who’s the city?”
The light bulb went off. Dwight was realizing that who is in office can actually make differences big or small to his and his family’s life. Not voting, he said, was “like a video game where you [are] not using the power-ups.”
She asked him if this had really changed his mind and if he would vote in November. “Yes, with you. And I’ll get the sticker,” he said.
I asked Jones what she would say to a politician who sat across from her and claimed they couldn’t figure out why young Black men in her state didn’t vote.
“Find out what’s important to them. Find out what’s affecting them. Find out what their knowledge is about politics. Because that’s the problem. They really just don’t know,” she said.
It’s just one potential voter, but it took less than a day. Nobody in politics had to do anything expensive to move Dwight Bullard.
It took a guy at work who likes the same movies, a tree in his mother’s yard and a reporter explaining how a strait on the other side of the world affected the price of gas in Ohio.
In a state where 603,000 Black voters stayed home last midterm, hardly anyone has been knocking on the door.
CORRECTION (Oct. 17, 2026, 10:30 a.m. ET): A previous version of this article listed the wrong city in which Shayla Davis served as a councilwoman. It was Garfield Heights, not Cleveland.
In the final weeks before the midterms, there’s a poll for just about everyone. One may show a candidate pulling ahead in a state that’s supposed to be hostile territory for their party. Another gives one of the parties a historic lead on the generic ballot. Whatever you’re hoping for on Election Day, you can probably find a poll that says it’s coming.
That doesn’t make it a good poll. Some of the most rigorous surveys out there may tell you exactly what you don’t want to hear, and even the best are not crystal balls. They are loaded with nuance, measure opinion at a single moment and carry uncertainty that’s easy to overlook in a fast-moving news cycle.
But polling is still a critical tool for understanding which races are competitive and which issues voters care about. The trick is reading them well. Here are three things worth considering to help you separate out meaningful patterns in the data from noise.
Polls are snapshots, not predictions
A poll can show which candidate leads a race when the interviews were conducted, but it cannot say for sure how people will vote days or weeks later. Campaigns are dynamic. Candidates’ positions evolve. Voters change their minds. In races where polls show many undecided voters, these shifts add another layer of uncertainty, because many of those voters will eventually pick someone. So pay attention to the share of respondents who are unsure or only leaning toward a candidate.
And like any snapshot, even the best poll is imperfect. High-quality pollsters work hard to make sure the people they interview accurately represent the voters in a state or district, but even excellent polls contain some noise. Smaller surveys typically have greater margins of error than larger ones. Results for specific demographic groups can be even less certain, since a survey may include only a small number of people from those groups.
Polls can offer a valuable snapshot of an election story as it unfolds. What they cannot do is predict with certainty how that story ends.
Not all polls are created equal
When most people come across a poll in a news story, the first thing they look at is the topline number: What is the poll telling me? But a better place to start is often with the source.
Who conducted the poll? How did they do it? What questions were respondents asked? Did the pollster release a methodology accounting for their decisions, or did they keep those details out of view?
These questions are important because how a pollster conducts a poll inevitably shapes what conclusions it — and, in turn, you — can draw from it. Most pollsters are well intentioned and have every incentive to get the numbers right, and reputable ones are transparent about their methods. They also generally don’t have a stake in the outcome or an incentive to try to shape the narrative around a race — unlike, say, a campaign releasing its own internal polling.
The lesson is simple. When a new poll comes out, look beyond the topline and spend a little time investigating how it was conducted. And never judge a poll’s quality by what it finds.
Polling contains unavoidable uncertainty
A common misconception with polling is that all differences are real and meaningful. For instance, in a poll of a congressional race that is 50% to 46%, it may be tempting to look at the candidate polling at 50% as the frontrunner and the one likely to win if nothing about the race changes.
But that is the wrong way to read most polls that show narrow gaps between candidates. Every poll contains some amount of uncertainty. That does not mean polling is broken, or that getting an accurate gauge on public opinion is impossible; it means that any single poll should be taken with caution and considered alongside other polls on the same race or issue.
One of the most common forms of uncertainty you will come across is a poll’s margin of error, which stems from the fact that a poll surveys only a sample of voters. In a 50-46 race with a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points, we can’t say for sure who would be ahead if every voter were surveyed, because the final result could be anything from a 53-43 race one way to a 47-49 race the other way.
And sampling error is just one of many challenges. Error can creep into a poll in many other ways, including how pollsters determine who is likely to vote and how they weight different groups to match the population they’re trying to measure.
That’s why context matters — a lot. Polling averages can be an excellent way of setting expectations when a new poll comes out and to avoid getting swept up in the hype around an outlier. Polls from reputable news organizations with strong track records can serve the same purpose.
And when two candidates are polling neck and neck, the best conclusion is often the most obvious one: If the election were held today, it could go either way.
For the third installment of MS NOW’s “The Voter Files,” we went to West Des Moines to hear from two groups of reluctant Trump voters — one group from the city’s suburbs and another from small towns and rural areas. Most have split their tickets in past elections.
Of the three states we’ve visited so far, Iowa offers Democrats the clearest and most hopeful picture. In Maine, Republican Sen. Susan Collins’ standing as a long-tenured institution may help her withstand Democratic momentum. In Michigan, Democrat Abdul El-Sayed’s struggles with some of his party’s traditional constituencies have kept the race tight.
But in Iowa, Democrats have taken the national distrust of Trump’s self-dealing and pointed it at Republican Senate candidate Ashley Hinson, raising questions about how her wealth has grown since she entered Congress. The resulting cynicism may give Democrat Josh Turek enough of an edge to win: enough crossover votes and enough depressed Republican turnout.
Low marks for Trump
Elise Jordan moderates a focus group of Iowan Trump voters on October 9, 2026.MS NOW
National polls show President Donald Trump at the lowest approval of his second term, and the Iowans we met were no more generous. All of them said they were unenthusiastic about voting for him in 2024. Asked to rate his second term on a scale of one to 10, none went higher than a six, most gave him a four or a five, and the lowest assessment was a two.
“Five is almost too generous,” said Diane, an independent. “He has a lot of room for improvement.”
One participant called him “unhinged.” Another described his second term as “a personal session, like his playground.”
For these voters, the clearest evidence of broken promises is the cost of living. Consumer prices are up 3.7% over the past year.
“Our prices were going to come down. Cost of living was going to get easier,” said Janella, a Republican. “Still haven’t seen it.”
Then there’s Trump’s decision to go to war with Iran. In national polling, only roughly 34% of Americans say Trump’s decision to go to war was the right one. He promised no new wars, and when he took office in January 2025, the United States wasn’t at war. Now, voters see not only continuing conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza, but a new war with Iran that Trump launched.
“It seems like we’re in more wars than ever before,” said Tim, an independent.
Jack, another independent, tied the broken promise to avoid war to rising costs.
Elise Jordan moderates a focus group of Iowan Trump voters on October 9, 2026.MS NOW
These voters went into Trump’s second term with their eyes open. Some dreaded a return to the drama of his first term and voted for him anyway.
“Do I really want to deal with all the drama that comes with him?” said Kristi, an independent, recalling her decision in 2024. “But then, what was my other choice?”
“He’s gotten worse,” Janella said, describing a president who has dropped any pretense of working with his own party, let alone with Democrats.
Yet for all their misgivings, when asked whether they would change their 2024 votes, all but one agreed they would vote for him again over Kamala Harris.
“There were no other options,” said Dirk, a right-leaning independent, raising his hand.
It’s this sentiment — that they would choose Trump again — that helps explain why Trump’s sagging approval hasn’t translated into decisive Democratic leads in some battleground states.
Two years later, what drives these voters as they weigh their Senate and House options is less Trump himself than a broader distrust of politics.
Kate, an independent, offered the most charitable view of Trump’s presidency.
“At least he is trying,” she said. “At least he is pushing a button somewhere.”
In theory, that’s a low bar for the opposition to clear. But these voters don’t see a compelling alternative from Democrats, or any vision that convinces them the party would do better.
No home with Democrats?
Elise Jordan moderates a focus group of Iowan voters on October 9, 2026.MS NOW
“Right now, we’re stuck with a Republican Party that will do nothing to offend Trump, and a Democratic Party that will do nothing except try to go after Trump, any way, shape, or form,” Dirk said. “So in the end, we all get screwed.”
The Iowans echoed what we heard from similar voters in Maine and Michigan: Democrats seem unmoored, fixated on Trump and short on concrete policy. Most alienating of all is their sense that Democrats look down on them for voting for Trump.
“I feel like they all think that we’re like racist,” Chandler said. “It’s like they always think that we’re all against everything. It’s just their agenda that they try to push on us.”
Some said those assumptions about their motives ignore the real circumstances and needs that shaped their votes.
“Personally, my vote was motivated by potential changes that Trump could make to the economy,” Anne said.
Democrats, Janella argued, were not paying attention to their lived reality.
“They need to stop all the fighting and bickering amongst themselves, and really genuinely take a good look at what the American people are dealing with,” Janella said. “This is our livelihood we’re talking about, and every single politician has forgotten about that.”
Will they skip the Senate race?
Elise Jordan moderates a focus group of Iowan voters on October 9, 2026.MS NOW
Disenchanted with Republicans and unconvinced by Democrats, some of the Iowans we met are weighing not who to support in the Senate race, but whether to vote in it at all.
The two groups split sharply. Of the 10 rural and small-town voters, six are leaning toward Hinson and four are considering Turek. None of the 10 suburban voters is considering Hinson; seven said they would leave the Senate race blank, and the other three are considering Turek.
Focus groups aren’t polls, and 20 voters can’t predict a statewide race. But if the 2024 electorate turns out again and that pattern holds in suburbs and small towns across Iowa, Turek could be well positioned to win. He wouldn’t need to convert Trump voters wholesale, just persuade some to cross over and many others to skip the race.
For Hinson, the danger isn’t that these voters have embraced Democrats. It’s that they’ve given up.
“You just lose all faith in everybody eventually because nothing gets done, and you lose trust and become cynical,” Jack said.
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