Your Call

On this edition of Your Call, we'll continue analyzing election results. The Democrats will keep the Senate and the Republicans are about to take the House with a slim majority.

Election denying MAGA Republicans were defeated in many races across the country, but they still got millions of votes. What message did voters send?

Once again, turnout was low. In Mississippi, only 31 percent of voters cast a ballot. In Maine, 60 percent of voters cast a ballot. About 27 percent of voters between the ages of 18-29 cast a ballot, with the majority voting for Democrats: 89 percent for Black youth; 68 percent for Latino youth; and 58 percent for white youth, according to the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement.

Guests:

LaTosha Brown, co-founder of Black Voters Matter Fund, the Black Voters Matter Capacity Building Institute, and founder of the Southern Black Girls & Women’s Consortium

Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labor under President Bill Clinton, chancellor’s professor at UC Berkeley, Senior Fellow at the Blum Center for Developing Economies at UC Berkeley, founding editor of The American Prospect, co-founder of Inequality Media, and author of more than 17 books

Marianna Pecora, 18-year-old freshman student at George Washington University, and deputy communications director for digital engagement at Voters of Tomorrow

Democrats keep control of the Senate, but key House races are still being decided. We'll discuss what state and local results mean for climate change.

On this edition of Your Call's Media Roundtable, we're discussing the consequences of partisan gerrymandering on the midterm election results.

Voters repudiated the GOP congressional agenda, but court-sanctioned gerrymanders made sure it didn’t matter, reports David Daley. He writes, "After the long-anticipated 2022 midterms, Republicans might emerge with the narrowest of majorities in the US House. If the GOP’s current advantage holds, they’ll have partisan gerrymandering to thank. This election—and the likely near-miss for preserving the Democrats’ majority in the House—only reinforces the power of gerrymandering to determine results."

Guest:

David Daley, independent journalist, and author of Ratf**ked: Why Your Vote Doesn't Count and Unrigged: How Americans Battled Back To Save Democracy

On this edition of Your Call, we're analyzing election results, which could take days or even weeks.

Results in Arizona and Nevada will determine which party controls the Senate. The Georgia Senate runoff race is scheduled for December 6. We're also waiting for key House races.

Abortion rights won in the five states where it was on the ballot and Democrats gained full control of four state governments: Massachusetts, Maryland, Michigan, and Minnesota.

Guests:

Shefali Luthra, health reporter covering the intersection of gender and healthcare at The 19th

Paul Blumenthal, senior reporter at HuffPost

Alex Sammon, politics writer at Slate

On this edition of Your Call, we're analyzing election results.

Major media and pundits predicted a red wave, which didn't happen, but we're still waiting on key House and Senate races across the country.

John Fetterman won his Senate race in Pennsylvania and JD Vance won in Ohio. Abortion rights won big across the country.

The total cost of the elections is projected to exceed a record breaking $17 billion, according to Open Secrets.

Guests:

John Nichols is national affairs correspondent for The Nation, and author of several books, including Coronavirus Criminals and Pandemic Profiteers: Accountability for Those Who Caused the Crisis

Wanda Mosley, national field director for Black Voters Matter

David Dayen, executive editor of The American Prospect, and author of Monopolized: Life in the Age of Corporate Power

On this edition of Your Call, on Election Day, we're discussing what's at stake. Sixty percent of Americans have a Republican election denier on the ballot, according to Five Thirty Eight. Medicare, social security, abortion, voting rights, the future of the planet, and more are at risk if they take power.

We’ll also discuss the ongoing threat of political violence and the right-wing extremists who brought us to this moment. This faction of the Republican Party is openly supporting Christian nationalism. What’s really at stake in this election?

Guests:

Elie Mystal, justice correspondent for The Nation, Alfred Knobler Fellow at the Type Media Center, and author of the New York Times bestseller "Allow Me to Retort: A Black Guy's Guide to the Constitution"

Anne Nelson, research scholar at Columbia University, and author of "Shadow Network: Media Money and the Secret Hub of the Radical Right"

On this edition of Your Call, prominent climate scientist Dr. Michael Mann is discussing the impacts of the midterm elections on US climate policies and the transition to renewable energy.

He says a more ambitious US climate policy would require a larger congressional majority that supports aggressive action — a scenario that depends in part on whether voters turn out in the midterm elections to vote for climate champions and against deniers and delayers.

We'll also discuss the climate agenda at the two-week UN climate summit in Egypt.

Guest:

Dr. Michael Mann, presidential distinguished Professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Science at the University of Pennsylvania, with a secondary appointment in the Annenberg School for Communication, and author of The New Climate War: The Fight to Take Back Our Planet

Web Resources:

Your Call: League of Conservation Voters' National Scorecard reveals a dismal Republican record on climate issues

The Guardian: Cop27 climate summit: window for avoiding catastrophe is closing fast

The Los Angeles Times: Op-Ed: Is there still time for COP27 to hold back climate catastrophe?

The Guardian: ‘A renewed sense of urgency’: climate on the ballot in US midterm elections

BBC: COP27: Jailed activist Alaa Abdel Fattah begins 'water strike'

On this edition of Your Call, we're discussing how Georgia provided the blueprint for the wave of anti-voter legislation passed by Republicans over the past two years.

Last year, Georgia Governor Brian Kemp signed signed a bill that restricted voting access in more than a dozen ways, including a reduction in the number of drop boxes in metro Atlanta from 97 to 23, new voter-ID requirements for mail-in ballots, a far lower bar for rejecting ballots cast in the wrong precinct, less time to request and return mail ballots, a prohibition on election officials sending mail-in ballot applications to all voters, and a ban on giving voters food or water while they’re waiting in line.

Georgia voter suppression law is having a clear impact this election cycle, reports Ari Berman. Conservative activists and election deniers have challenged the eligibility of more than 65,000 voters through the early voting period, claiming they no longer live at the correct address. Though 95 percent of the challenges have been dismissed at the county level, they have led to confusion and accusations of voter intimidation; in some cases, voters have showed up at the polls and been told they cannot vote because someone has challenged their eligibility.

Guest:

Ari Berman, national voting rights correspondent for Mother Jones and author of Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America

On this edition of Your Call’s Media Roundtable, we're following the money being spent on the midterm elections. The total cost is projected to exceed $16.7 billion, according to a new OpenSecrets analysis.

At least 228 Fortune 500 companies vowed to stop supporting Republican election deniers following the Jan. 6 attack. Instead, companies like Home Depot, AT&T, Comast, and Boeing are pouring more than $13 million into election deniers' campaigns, according to ProPublica.

The ultra wealthy in California contribute more money to the GOP than any state other than Florida, and the Las Vegas real estate billionaire Steve Wynn is bankrolling election deniers and a law firm that is working to make it even harder to vote, according to Capital & Main.

Guest:

Sergio Hernandez, reporter and developer with ProPublica’s news apps team

Jeremy Lindenfeld, freelance journalist who contributes to Capital & Main

Jessica Goodheart, senior reporter at Capital & Main

On this edition of Your Call, veteran journalist William Kleinknecht is discussing his forthcoming book, States of Neglect: How Red State Leaders Have Failed Their Citizens and Undermined America.

He documents how conservative politicians have systematically kept those living in Republican-controlled states in perpetual deprivation through tax cuts, deregulation, and reductions in funding for health care, education, and other public services.

He writes, "There has been a lurch to the right in Republican-controlled statehouses across the country that has had dire results for ordinary citizens but, until very recently, has largely escaped the lens of the national media. Major news outlets came to this story late and with blinders on. They have tended to pay attention to manifest injustices in GOP states, such as the attack on voting rights, only to the degree that they impinge on the balance of power in Washington."

What's at stake in the midterms and what will it take to counter the influence and power of the far right?

Guest:

William Kleinknecht, longtime reporter covering politics, government, criminal justice, and the environment for the Detroit Free Press, New York Daily News, and Newark Star-Ledger, and author of several books, including The Man Who Sold the World: Ronald Reagan and the Betrayal of Main Street America, and his latest, States of Neglect: How Red State Leaders Have Failed Their Citizens and Undermined America