Host, America, Actually! @voxmedia Weekly midterms newsletter @Substack Editorial director @voxdotcom Political analyst @cnn Former @nytimes @bostonglobe
New York, NY
Joined August 2011
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!!!! First day of our new podcast, America Actually (w/ Astead Herndon). It's going to be about the upcoming elections and America's road to a post-Trump future.
But as we got started I wanted to write something about why I landed on that theme and what I saw as the our mission in a landscape of a lot of media choices
Astead retweeted
Timberland cited the Knicks championship run in their SEC filings this summer as a reason why they sold more Timbs compared to the year prior
Watch the full interview on their YouTube channel
youtu.be/oihZUvHC_2w?is=7KNV…
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Astead retweeted
Astead asks David Axelrod if Schumer & Jeffries should be taking the credit for the big win:
I would be humble if I were them. This victory was delivered by the American people, not Washington.
I heard they were searching for the phone numbers of some of the Democrats who won.
Republicans chose fealty to Trump even though all the evidence pointed to his agenda being broadly unpopular. Why? Because his grip on GOP primary base remained total — and our political structures create incentives for politicians to think in self preservation
All the GOP 2028ers will have to walk this line going forward. An administration who is only acting in the interest of its hardliners
On @CNN with @JohnBerman:
FWIW — this clip cuts off his full answer: Moore said, “l lose no sleep over the amount of billionaires in our society…But I do lose sleep over the amount of children that are growing up in poverty"
Maryland Gov. @iamwesmoore on this weekend’s America, Actually!
Going through the issues that animated Democrat victories this week (affordability, anti-war, data centers, immigration)
Plus enough Black governors to start a group chat?
Watch 📺
Listen to the full interview wherever you podcast or watch America, Actually on the @voxdotcom YouTube channel
youtube.com/watch?v=olEs7cm1…
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Why I’d urge caution on declaring the Trump era over. The second term project hasn’t just been about retribution, but also unchecked presidential power — with Miller and Project 2025 its architects.
They didn’t really try and sell their agenda to the public. They tried to gerrymander a win before voting started. And they worked hard to empower the executive, and to minimize the role of Congress/Courts altogether.
So in a weird, undemocratic way, the WH has been building to this moment for two years.
This week’s newsletter: An important thing to communicate about the midterms — even a Democratic wave doesn’t meant the end of the Trump agenda
The president has spent two years methodically expanding presidential power, and it’s been largely blessed by the courts. It’s the common ground between Trump, Stephen Miller, the Heritage Foundation and Project 2025: the unitary executive
The second term agenda that has made him unpopular has served a structural purpose. He’s already marginalized Congress in policymaking
On @Substack: americaactually.substack.com…
On @voxdotcom: vox.com/politics/506401/midt…
The moment I knew Republicans were cooked this midterms: when PA voters at an Allentown gas station were name checking the Strait of Hormuz.
Tariffs were the original policy sin of this administration, and that’s only been magnified by a needless war. Trump did this to himself
On @CNN with @JohnBerman + @ForecasterEnten:
Silver lining: At least we’re finally acknowledging this was all about 2028 the whole time
First, Piker's connection to El-Sayed was supposed to cost him the primary. Then the small margin of victory supposedly proved he couldn't win the general. Now he's polling better, and the goalposts have moved again.
Why? As I wrote this summer, it was never just about the streamer. It was also about 2028, and the left's growing ability to go around traditional gatekeepers to get its message out. That was clear from our interviews. It's clear in the reaction to AOC's fundraiser comments.
But "moderates" essentially agree with what she said: El-Sayed's performance does have a direct effect on the potency of the "electability" argument in the 2028 primary.
That's why they've been so invested in litigating what counts as a win in the first place!
Didn’t mean to offend! But I guess I’ll explain more
This summer, Third Way ~guaranteed me that El-Sayed’s association with Piker would cost him the Michigan primary. And if not the primary, then the general.
That doesnt sound very big tent to me — and it’s hard to hear that and think the campaign that followed was all good faith. I believe many Moderate Democrats (and some in media) are invested in their most preferred outcome this November: Democrats do well broadly but progressives underperform or lose, helping prove a point abt electability ahead of crossroads 2028 moment. And I think the anti-Hasan campaign they kicked off was an attempt to lay that marker. They basically said so on our show.
That doesn’t mean there’s not substantive disagreement. Or that you and many others don’t have fair reason to dislike him personally. But the continued focus on every Piker utterance, particularly after El-Sayed has already distanced himself from the streamer, has been so disproportionate. Not to mention the tone of overt hostility from mainstream media. To me that’s best understood by what I said in the video above, the resentment of a changing landscape where traditional gatekeepers have less and less power
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Angie Nixon didn’t win her Democratic primary because of a weak state party. Voters chose her over a candidate who outspent her 10 to 1.
Also no one outside of the national media bubble saw her through the lens of “DSA,” which is part of the reason she beat back the GOP caricature of that label, and shows the limits of this sort of analysis.
Actual people chose an actual person — let’s start there
Ezra Klein on the electoral performance of El-Sayed, Peggy Flanagan and Angie Nixon:
Angie Nixon—I don't think there's any reason to look at the results and say it was a brilliant strategic move to run the DSA candidate in Florida.
Sometimes people take statements about electoral performance as moral statements about the worth of a candidate or the ideas. That's crazy in my view.
Astead retweeted
A striking stat re AIPAC performance in the midterms. In 2022, almost 70% of its funds went into races where it got the desired result. In 2024, it was 87%. In 2026, that figure is 34%.
responsiblestatecraft.org/ai…
We’re breaking down results with @davidaxelrod on live on @substack today at 11 est!
Publishing in America, Actually feeds and @voxdotcom YouTube channel later today
