A year ago, Astead took “The Run-Up” listeners home for Thanksgiving.

Specifically, he convened a focus group of family and friends to talk about the election and the question of Black people’s changing relationship to the Democratic Party.

This year, he got the group back together for a different mission.

The question was: What happened? What can Democrats learn from their defeat in 2024?

On today’s show: an autopsy conducted not by consultants or elected officials but by committed, everyday Democratic voters. And a farewell.

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President-elect Trump’s cabinet nominees and major appointments — which have arrived quickly in the days since he won the election — are more than just a list of allies. The roster is a window into how he sees the mission of a second term.

One priority will be immigration and border control, and, more specifically, Trump’s campaign promise of “mass deportations.”

On Sunday night, Trump announced the person he was putting in charge of this effort: Tom Homan.

Homan was the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement during the first Trump administration, and he played a key role in the family separation policy.

Back in March 2023, we went to see Homan speak at the Conservative Political Action Conference, known as CPAC. After his panel, we sat down to discuss his views on the border and how he and Trump might institute their preferred policies, like mass deportation, if given the chance.

Which of course, they now have been.

On today’s show, that candid interview from 2023 with Tom Homan, and a possible glimpse at our immigration future.

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For more than two years, we’ve been asking pretty much everyone we meet a version of the same question:

Who are you going to vote for and why?

And on Wednesday morning, we had the answer to that question. Or at least the first part.

Donald Trump easily won the electoral vote, and as of early Thursday, he’s on track to win the popular vote too.

The second part of the question — the why of 2024 — is a little more complicated. It will take time to answer in its entirety.

But we wanted to start small, by talking with one Michigan voter. She came to mind on election night, when it became clear that it was going to be a Trump victory and that the sweep of his support was telling a new story about this country.

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For months now, “The Run-Up” has been traveling around the country talking with people, trying to ensure that when today came, whatever happened wouldn’t feel like a surprise.

So as people go to the polls to cast their vote for Kamala Harris, Donald Trump or someone else, we wanted to return to the place where we started almost exactly a year ago.

Clallam County, in the northwest corner of Washington State.

It’s the last true bellwether county in America. Voters there have correctly picked the president every year since 1980.

Last year, what we found in Clallam really did match the mood of the country.

Democrats were worried about Joe Biden’s age. Some Republicans were hoping they might have an option other than Donald Trump. And overall, people expressed frustration with their options and both political parties.

On Election Day, we return to Clallam to hear what’s on the minds of these voters — people whose feelings and decisions could reflect how the country votes.

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One phenomenon that’s been getting a lot of attention during this election is the growing gender gap among young people.

Young men are leaning right, and young women are moving left.

In recent national surveys from The New York Times and Siena College, young women favored Kamala Harris by 42 percentage points and young men favored Donald Trump by 12 points.

And Trump has made explicit appeals to men — or at least his version of masculinity — a huge part of his message and campaign strategy.

So, as we enter the election’s final days, we wanted to see how these messages were landing in the key battleground state of Wisconsin.

On the show today: What’s driving the gender divide in 2024? And is Trump’s bet on young men working?

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For most of this year, we’ve been focused on the race for president, the messages coming from both parties’ nominees and their reception among voters.

But that’s not all that’s on the ballot this November, and so much of what any president can do in the White House depends on who’s in Congress.

So before Election Day, we wanted to take a look at the down-ballot landscape of 2024.

Who will control the House and the Senate? And what can we learn about both parties when we turn away from the top of the ticket?

On today’s episode:

Amy Walter, publisher and editor in chief of The Cook Political Report with Amy Walter.

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There’s no state more likely to tip the election than Pennsylvania.

It has the most electoral votes of any swing state, with 19, and its flip from red to blue in 2020 helped secure the win for Joe Biden.

For Kamala Harris to prevail there this year, she needs to win over moderates, even Republicans, who are turned off by Donald Trump. And she has to drive up enthusiasm among the Democratic base, including Black voters in urban centers like Philadelphia.

On the show today, the Democrats’ final push in Pennsylvania — and a conversation with Al Schmidt, the state’s top election official, on how he’s preparing for close results in this closely watched state.

Featured in the episode:

Canvassers with the Working Families Party

Al Schmidt, Pennsylvania’s secretary of state

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Here’s what makes North Carolina, with its 16 Electoral College votes, unique among the electoral battlegrounds this year.

Come election night, it will be one of the first of the closely fought states where the polls will close, giving the campaigns, and the public, early clues on where the night is headed.

The state is probably the best opportunity for Democrats to win a state this year that they didn’t win in 2020, and the party — along with the state’s Democratic governor — is optimistic that demographic shifts in the state might favor Kamala Harris.

North Carolina is still reeling from Hurricane Helene, which hit late last month, caused an estimated $53 billion in damages and upended early voting plans in the western — and heavily Republican-leaning — part of the state. It also led to a flood of misinformation about the governor, Roy Cooper, and the federal disaster response.

On today’s show, how Hurricane Helene and the misinformation that followed have reshaped the election landscape in this crucial battleground state — and changed the closing messages from both parties.

On today’s episode:

Gov. Roy Cooper, Democrat of North Carolina

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On Tuesday night, with three weeks to go until Election Day, Donald Trump was in Georgia.

In 2020, he lost the state by around 12,000 votes, and Georgia became central to his claims that the election had been stolen. After his defeat, he went after Republican state officials and voting machines.

At his rally on Tuesday, he was doing something different. He was encouraging people to vote early, to participate in a system his party had previously questioned.

The plan was to make the results “too big to rig” — just one part of the Republican strategy to make sure last time doesn’t repeat itself.

On today’s show, we take a closer look at the Trump ground game in Georgia and explore why Georgia Republicans are confident that 2024 won’t be like 2020.

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We are less than a month from Election Day.

That means our polling colleagues are busy. And that they are well positioned to help answer some of the biggest questions we have at this stage in the race.

Like: Who has the advantage between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump?

What’s the most important battleground state?

And what are the chances we actually know the final result on election night?

On today’s show, we do our best to get answers — and to get ready for these next few weeks.

Featured on today’s episode:

Nate Cohn, the chief political analyst for The New York Times.

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