AILSA CHANG, HOST:
We've been talking a lot about who was on the ballot yesterday, but now we're going to talk about what, because there was one issue that did remain prominent throughout this entire election.
(SOUNDBITE OF MONTAGE)
UNIDENTIFIED CANDIDATE #1: Stop data centers.
UNIDENTIFIED CANDIDATE #2: Fight against this unchecked development of data centers.
UNIDENTIFIED CANDIDATE #3: The noise, the dust and the fact that this is being built in their own backyards.
UNIDENTIFIED CANDIDATE #4: Make sure these data centers don't flood our communities and raise our electric rates.
CHANG: All right. We're hearing the voices there of a few candidates talking about data centers on social media ahead of Election Day. Almost 30 jurisdictions voted to ban or restrict data centers. And many Democratic candidates who promised to curb data center growth won their governors' races. Reporter Molly Taft is with me now. They're a senior writer for WIRED. Welcome.
MOLLY TAFT: Thanks for having me.
CHANG: Let's talk about all these different ballot measures that did pass. I mean, there were a lot of promises from governors-elect to limit data centers. Can you just walk us through the range of the different approaches that voters chose?
TAFT: Generally, I think you would be hard-pressed to find someone who said what's happening right now is totally fine. Everyone should be fine with unchecked development. A lot of people weighed in at least for some kind of regulation of the industry. The data center industry itself has said, look, people are having a really strong reaction to data center development. We are totally open to being regulated.
CHANG: Yeah.
TAFT: So it's a big range - right? - from let's regulate an industry that was previously unregulated, all the way over to let's pause development. Which we did see a handful of pretty high-profile candidates actually propose moratoriums.
CHANG: Let's talk about one of those examples. Texas, which is a...
TAFT: Yes.
CHANG: ...Major data center hub. The new governor-elect there, a Democrat, Gina Hinojosa, she wants a moratorium on all new data center projects. How do you think that's going to shake out in Texas?
TAFT: Over the past year, until very recently, the government of Texas welcomed them with open arms, right? Governor Greg Abbott was very open to data center development, was very excited about it until a couple of months ago when he was facing a tough reelection campaign and he started to walk back some of his previous statements. But what's remarkable for me is that Gina Hinojosa actually campaigned about Abbott being too soft on data centers. She said he's not doing enough.
So if you look at her platform, there's kind of a little bit of room to interpret what she actually wants for Texas. You could have a little bit more of an industry-friendly moratorium. Or you could go all the way - right? - and really impose extremely strict regulations on the industry. So the real question is going to be balancing industry interests, allowing some development to go through and then also responding to what your voters actually want out of you. This is kind of a big landscape for politicians.
MS NOW host Chris Hayes eloquently described the blue tsunami of Democratic wins in last night’s midterm elections as a “repudiation” of the Republicans’ “grossness” and “cruelty” of attacking transgender people.
“I was really upset by the the grossness and the cruelty of the closing message of Republicans in Michigan about the things they said about Abdul El-Sayed,” Hayes said in a recent broadcast, “but also the attack on trans folks that has just become so toxic and so common and so cruel and so ceaseless.”
“It was every ad, every ad. You watch a Sunday football game, and it was, ‘These people are the reason. This is the problem. This is the thing you have to think about.’ And they pumped hundreds of millions of dollars. And I saw Republicans, hardcore Republicans, when asked in man-on-the-street interviews, ‘What are you voting for?’ It’s, ‘I want to get you know boys out of girls’ sports.'”
“And to see the repudiation of that approach specifically, when that pollution was pumped into the discourse with hundreds of millions of dollars, like that people are like, ‘I don’t care about that and I reject that,’ there’s, like, some salvaging of decency for people that are our neighbors and our friends and our loved ones, who are a tiny minority of this population, who somehow have become the ritualized scapegoat for an entire political party that spent hundreds of millions of dollars trying to make everyone fear and hate them,” Hayes said.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Today is a day for all of the superlatives. Unbelievable, unprecedented, stunning - just a few of the words being used to describe Democratic victories across the country in midterm elections.
AILSA CHANG, HOST:
And just to recap, Democrats won majorities in both houses of Congress, picking up at least seven seats in the Senate. Two races in Mississippi and Alaska are still too close to call. Democrats also took control of the House, flipping more than two dozen seats, with races yet to be called.
KELLY: They also picked up five governorships. They captured control of at least nine state legislative houses. So how did they do it? And what might Democratic control of Congress look like? Those are a couple of the questions I'm going to put now to NPR White House correspondent Emily Feng, congressional reporter Eric McDaniel and senior political editor and correspondent Domenico Montanaro. We got a whole team here. Domenico, I'm going to throw you the question that I had waking up this morning. Did the Democrats win or did the Republicans lose?
DOMENICO MONTANARO, BYLINE: Yeah, it's not really an either-or. Clearly, the overriding factor, though, was Donald Trump. I mean, his unpopularity, the war in Iran, rising prices, the growing gap between the uber-rich and the middle class. I mean, some $12 billion spent on this election while other people are struggling to buy gas. All of that together created a huge backlash, maybe call it a Trump-lash. Democrats, though, also did recruit very good candidates. You don't win in places like Iowa, Texas, Kansas as Democrats without candidates who can make the most of the moment and be good fits for their states. They showed real level of authenticity. That will give them a big opportunity to show what Democrats did wasn't just a big midterm asterisk.
KELLY: And one more to you, Domenico, because we've been talking a lot, you and I, about polling these last few weeks. Were the polls going to work? Could we trust them? In the end, they did all right.
MONTANARO: In the end, they did do OK. You know, they pointed in the right direction. If anything, they underestimated Democratic support. But we don't know how many people decided late, you know, after when the polls had been conducted before the election. And things usually do break in one direction in midterms. It happened in 2006. It happened again in this election. Polls predicted Democrats plus 8 on the generic congressional ballot. It wound up being bigger, closer to plus 13, which is massive and no one would have believed it beforehand. Even with the underestimation, all the signs were there for a pretty big wave with what the polls were showing, but people were rightfully cautious given the polling errors we've seen over the past decade that had underestimated Republican support.
KELLY: Yeah.
MONTANARO: It's just very difficult in this age, when there's been such a major political realignment, to poll.
KELLY: Eric McDaniel, you cover Congress.
ERIC MCDANIEL, BYLINE: Indeed, I do.
KELLY: Lucky you. Here's my question to you. What happens immediately? Because Republicans still control the House and the Senate for the next couple months. Does anything change between now and January?
MCDANIEL: Well, I mean, it only gets harder for Republicans, right? They've got a narrow majority right now in the House, a small majority in the Senate. But good luck to them getting every one of those folks who lost back into Washington to pass legislation on a party-line basis. There's not a lot of incentive...
KELLY: Yeah.
MCDANIEL: ...To come back to town. And that's important stuff. That's government funding. That's more money for the Iran war. They also have to figure out what their leadership looks like next. Our friend Barbara Sprunt is reporting that current Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, Republican of Louisiana, he won't seek reelection as the top House Republican. That sets up a battle between at least two folks, Jim Jordan of Ohio and Steve Scalise of Louisiana. Jim Jordan's pugnacious. He's a brawler. He could be dispositionally well suited to counter Democrats' investigation-heavy agenda. Scalise is sort of a party man. He's a committed Trump ally, but generally seen as less pugnacious than Jordan.
But - and this is speculation on my part - I think there's probably an appetite for someone willing to take a more Trump-skeptical stance as a party leader - right? - given the mollywhopping voters just delivered the party because of the president.
KELLY: Yeah. And then agenda? I mean, how do we expect Democrats are going to use their newfound majorities come January?
MCDANIEL: They'll act on the things they campaigned on. That's cost of living. That's perceived political corruption. They talk about cost of living from healthcare to housing. But with Trump still in the White House, I don't expect that those bills will absolutely become law. In perceived public corruption, expect bills on lawmaker stock trading and then investigations into investigations into investigations - every part of Trump's life from his administration's agenda and the extent of his relationship with the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The likely incoming House oversight chair, Robert Garcia, Democrat of California, posted on Twitter last night, simply, lawyer up.
KELLY: Lawyer up. Sounds ominous. Emily Feng, hop in here. What's the mood at the White House like today?
EMILY FENG, BYLINE: Yeah, so I am at the White House today. It's quiet, but it's also surreal, and that's because the president has had one public event so far today, and it was not about the election. It was to talk about his East Wing ballroom construction project. He had hundreds of construction workers who were building it come in. And at this event, he spent most of his time talking about the quality of the marble that he was using and his new helipad and really not about the election. However, last night, a White House official told NPR that the mood watching these results come in was, quote, "defiant at the White House." And then today, Trump's Truth Social media account shared a picture of a red hat with the word veto written on it because Trump has said he is going to veto most bills brought to him by a Democratic Congress.
More broadly, the sense I get is the mood in the Republican Party is one of confusion and of soul searching. As my colleagues have just pointed out, these midterms were a big rebuke of Trump himself. He has been quick to point out he was not literally on the ballot, but voters rejected his policies, you know, his economic policies and tariffs, the war in Iran. And even his own vice president today, JD Vance, broke with Trump and wrote on X that he thinks one of the primary reasons behind Republican losses was the war in Iran. So today, when Trump was celebrating, you know, the last steel ceiling beam that was being put in place in the ballroom project, reporters asked him if he regretted, perhaps, the Iran war costing the GOP the House and the Senate, and he said this.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Probably it's true, but at the same time, if I had it to do again, I'd have to do it again because long-term, it's the only answer. You can't let Iran have a nuclear weapon.
KELLY: Interesting. So, I mean, Emily, is there any sign, any indication that President Trump might be willing to change course with the war in Iran?
FENG: He seemed to soften his stance a little today. He said today he could end the war, quote, "anytime" he wanted. He said last night on Fox & Friends that he would still strike Iran, though, if Iran, quote, "does not behave." But also that the two countries could have a diplomatic ending to this, that they could sign something to end the war. He has warned that any new major strikes would happen after the midterms, but he's already said he will not use nuclear weapons. He told Politico last night he does not need to use nuclear weapons against Iran.
KELLY: Eric, back to you. One of the outgrowths of the war in Iran has, of course, been high diesel prices, high gas prices. Affordability, affordability, affordability, which was a huge factor in the election, we're told.
WASHINGTON, DC – Today Congresswoman Suzanne Bonamici (OR-01) and Senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley demanded an investigation into Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents for slashing a couple’s tires in Hillsboro.
The couple was observing and recording ICE agents in a supermarket parking lot on October 7, 2026, before multiple masked ICE agents in three vehicles tailed the couple, boxed them in, and repeatedly stabbed and slashed their tires before driving away. A video of the incident can be viewed here.
“ICE agents cannot act with impunity,” the lawmakers wrote. “The First Amendment protects the right to observe, gather information, and record law enforcement officers performing their duties in public. These constitutional protections are necessary for the public to learn about and freely debate the government’s actions, including potential misconduct, and demand accountability when necessary.”
The lawmakers noted that there have been many documented cases of excessive use of force and intimidation tactics against peaceful community members and legal observers by ICE in Oregon and across the country. They called for the Inspector General for the Department of Homeland Security to immediately investigate the Oct. 7 incident in Hillsboro, identify the agents involved, and preserve all evidence, so that those responsible may be disciplined.
“Without videos from bystanders, observers, journalists, and protestors, the public would never know the full scale of federal retaliation against those who seek to document ICE activity,” the lawmakers wrote.
Bonamici, Wyden, Merkley, and Dexter also recently raised concerns about the lack of access to counsel for individuals detained by ICE and what appear to be new protocols for bypassing the Portland ICE facility entirely. That letter can be found here.
The full letter about the Oct. 7 incident can be read here and below:
Dear Inspector General Cuffari:
We write to request an investigation into an alarming incident that occurred on October 7, 2026, in which U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents harassed, intimidated, and retaliated against a couple in Hillsboro, Oregon for engaging in First Amendment activities. The incident occurred when our constituents observed and recorded ICE agents in a supermarket parking lot. Soon thereafter, multiple masked ICE agents in three vehicles recklessly tailed the couple, boxed them in, and dangerously vandalized their vehicle by repeatedly stabbing and puncturing one of their tires before driving away.1
ICE agents cannot act with impunity. The First Amendment protects the right to observe, gather information about, and record law enforcement officers performing their duties in public.2 These constitutional protections are necessary for the public to learn about and freely debate the government’s actions, including potential misconduct, and demand accountability when necessary.
Since President Trump returned to office in January 2025, federal ICE agents across the country have repeatedly failed to respect rights afforded under the Constitution, especially the First Amendment. We have seen many documented cases of excessive use of force and intimidation tactics by ICE in Oregon, including federal agents needlessly deploying tear-gas and other projectiles against peaceful community members as well as driving erratically and verbally threatening legal observers. This pattern of irresponsible and illegal behavior from federal agents is also evident across the country. For example, federal agents in Memphis, Tennessee harassed observers by swerving at them, tailing them, boxing them in, and pulling them over without reasonable suspicion; sitting outside of their homes; and assaulting and arresting them.3 In Los Angeles, federal agents fired crowd control weapons into the heads and other sensitive areas of observers, journalists, and protestors. A judge later granted an injunction against this behavior4 and found that the plaintiffs have plausibly alleged that DHS had a policy of retaliating against people who record the activities of agents.5
Most troubling, federal immigration agents killed Alex Pretti while he was peacefully recording and protesting ICE’s actions.6 Through all of this, the Trump administration has repeatedly covered up officer misconduct and obstructed investigations.7 To this day, there is no evidence that the federal government has meaningfully investigated Mr. Pretti’s killing, with his parents noting that “at every turn, they have ignored us, misled us and shielded Alex’s killers.”8 This reckless behavior and senseless violence endangers everyone across the country and does not advance ICE’s mission of enforcing immigration laws to preserve national security and public safety.
Without videos from bystanders, observers, journalists, and protestors, the public would never know the full scale of federal retaliation against those who seek to document ICE activity.
We hereby demand that your offices immediately undertake an investigation of the October 7, 2026, incident in Hillsboro, Oregon outlined above. Please identify the ICE agents involved and preserve all relevant evidence so the officers can be disciplined and prosecuted as appropriate.
Further, we request that you undertake a comprehensive investigation of the pervasive pattern of ICE agents acting unlawfully and retaliating against individuals exercising their First Amendment rights. We ask that you work with Congress to make lasting changes to ICE training, oversight, and accountability. The rights of our constituents must not be jeopardized any longer.
Sincerely,
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