Politics Brief

Kathy Hochul is a longtime public servant, and since 2015, she's been lieutenant governor of New York. She joined the Brian Lehrer Show to talk about her reelection campaign. 

Kathy Hochul is a longtime public servant, and since 2015, she's been lieutenant governor of New York. She joined the Brian Lehrer Show to talk about her reelection campaign. 

Franklin Graham has no issue with showing his full-fledged support for President Trump. Graham tells the New Yorker staff writer Eliza Griswold that Trump’s critics have forgotten that “he’s our President. If he succeeds, you’re going to benefit.”

Jumaane Williams, candidate for lieutenant governor of New York and city council member for the 45th District, talks about his campaign for New York State lieutenant governor -- the policies and issues he hits on include: legalizing marijuana, marriage equality & abortion, rezonings, fracking, free college tuition and more. 

Liuba Grechen Shirley is the Democrat hoping to best longtime New York Republican Congressman Pete King in the race for his seat. Like many other women across the country Grechen Shirley became motivated to run for office in the fallout from the 2016 presidential election.

“I needed to stand up and say something and I decided running for office would be the best way to do that,” she said.  

But she also needed childcare for her two young children while she and her husband worked full time. Last spring, she went to Washington to ask the Federal Election Commission for permission to spend campaign funds on a babysitter. 

With 10 days to go before the party primaries, Nixon remains the underdog in the polls in the New York governor's race against Andrew Cuomo. But the upset win by Congressional candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez earlier this summer, and Andrew Gillum’s surprising gubernatorial primary victory in Florida, has given many Nixon supporters hope and cemented a strategy: attracting new voters to the polls, or “expanding the electorate.”

Formerly a member of the Clinton and Obama administrations, Eric Liu is the CEO of Citizens University and executive director of the Aspen Institute’s Citizen and American Identity Program. Liu says that he's part of a new generation of activists who are trying to empower people to lead in cities and towns across the country, and is hopeful with what he sees. 

In the run-up to and the fallout from the 2016 election, reporters have been accused of normalizing dangerous racist movements or falling for predictable tricks.

Lois Beckett, senior reporter at The Guardian US talks with four seasoned reporters on the far-right beat about what they have learned from covering American hate groups and about the mistakes the media often make.

For our next season of the United States of Anxiety, we’re focusing on power and gender, and we’ve partnered with ProPublica to look at how political advertising targets people of different genders differently on Facebook.

Unlike broadcast television ads, which are heavily regulated, we have no idea how individual voters are micro-targeted on Facebook. It’s still the Wild West. Nor do we know about potentially unethical or misleading advertising that may be happening.

We do know from the Cambridge Analytica scandal that much of the misinformation spread in 2016 targeted people based on their race and gender. And we know that this is an election in which gender is expected to be a decisive factor.

What can you do?

By doing this, you'll be part of groundbreaking research — remember this is the first election cycle since Facebook changed its policies. And you'll also be helping WNYC and ProPublica bring you reporting and analysis about these campaign ads.

To get started, visit propublica.org/facebook.

News out of President Trump's White House moves fast. And you probably have questions about what's been going on. Rebecca Ballhaus, of the Wall Street Journal, and Ken White, a former federal prosecutor and criminal defense attorney, join The Takeaway to demystify some of the big words you hear in the news, from indictment to impeachment.