by Mansa Musa | Sep 29, 2026 | elections, midterms, Politics and Movements: US, prison reform, Prisons and Policing, Rattling the Bars, video
In this episode of Rattling the Bars, the midterms edition, we take you to the Commonwealth, where Andrea James—abolitionist, author, and organizer—is currently running for governor of Massachusetts. The countdown to November 3 is officially underway. Debates are scheduled for October, but independent and third-party candidates are being excluded from participating.
Andrea James has led national campaigns to reunite families by demanding clemency from high-level officials for incarcerated women and men. Now, she is running for governor with a platform focused on rent stabilization, lower energy costs, free childcare and stopping the construction of a new $360M women’s prison.
As a 501(c)(3) organization, The Real News Network does not endorse candidates. However, as an independent news network, TRNN understands how corporate media gives disproportionate airtime to the DNC and GOP compared to independent and third-party candidates.
Related Links:
Andrea James’ Facebook, X, Instagram, TikTok, Bluesky
Credits:
Production/Post-production: Cameron Granadino
Transcript
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. It will be updated.
Mansa Musa:
Welcome to this edition of Rattling the Bars. I’m your host, Mansa Musa. Joining me today is Andrea James, activist in every sense of the word. I want to say abolitionist, but she’s an activist in every sense of the word, organizing and is currently running for the governor of Massachusetts. Thank you for joining me, Andrea.
Andrea James:
Thank you for having me. It’s really great to be back in your studio and just to have the privilege of being a part of how you disseminate information. It’s really an honor to be here and I thank you for this opportunity.
Mansa Musa:
And we want to go on record right now saying that here at Rattling
by Steve Benen | Sep 29, 2026 | Congress, elections, Maddowblog, White House
Four weeks ago, as September was just getting underway, Donald Trump hosted a White House event for congressional Republicans, who heard the president share some of his plans for the midterm elections.
Trump said that over the final month of the cycle, he would headline a series of campaign events, with a specific focus on “35 races.” The president didn’t go into a lot of detail about where he was headed, but he made one thing clear to the GOP lawmakers in attendance: If you’re an incumbent who’s all but certain to win, Trump said, “please don’t ask me to come to your area and make a speech.”
Instead, he added, his focus would be on Republican candidates who are “either tied or you’re winning by a little bit, or you’re losing by a little bit.”
Four weeks later, with 35 days remaining before Election Day, Trump’s upcoming travel schedule is coming into focus — and it’s remarkable how defensive his itinerary is. Politico reported:
President Donald Trump intends to spend the next 30 days campaigning for Republicans, many of whom are underwater in states the president easily carried two years ago. […]
Trump’s upcoming travel — including to Alabama, Oklahoma and Ohio this week — puts a focus on what Republican donors and operatives have feared for months: that even a gerrymandered House map and whopping cash advantage won’t be enough to save the House or Senate from Democrats.
For those keeping score, just two years ago, Trump carried Alabama by 31 points, Oklahoma by 34 points and Ohio by 11 points. The president is also reportedly soon headed to Alaska, which he won by
by Adam Hudacek | Sep 29, 2026 | elections, News
Abdul El-Sayed on Tuesday unveiled a plan to help Michigan’s struggling small farms, making him the latest Democratic Senate hopeful to court farmers as rising costs weaken Republicans’ grip on rural America.
Farmers are under serious financial strain. Diesel prices, pushed up by the war in Iran, hit a record national average of about $6.52 a gallon last week, according to AAA. Fertilizer prices spiked this spring, just as farmers were buying for planting season, as the war bottlenecked the global supply. But even before the war, many farms were on precarious financial footing: Farm bankruptcies surged nearly 46% in 2025 according to the American Farm Bureau Federation, with the heaviest concentration of filings in the Midwest and South, including Georgia, Iowa, Michigan and Minnesota.
With the midterms weeks away, Democrats in several Senate races see an opening in farm country, where their party has long struggled. Trump won 69% of rural voters in 2024, according to data from the Pew Research Center. But a recent KFF/Associated Press survey showed that 57% of rural voters — including 27% of rural Republicans — disapprove of Trump’s handling of the economy.
El-Sayed, who faces Republican former Rep. Mike Rogers, rolled out the plan as part of a broader platform that also covers food and water safety. The campaign pieced it together with input from family farmers and members of the Michigan Farmers Union, a source familiar with the campaign told MS NOW, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss internal conversations.
“Family farmers are feeling the pinch from Trump’s price hikes as much as anyone, and they are a key part of the coalition that will
by Dion Nissenbaum | Sep 28, 2026 | 2026 election, 2026 Elections, 2026 midterms, Department of Homeland Security, DHS, Disenfranchisement, elections, midterms, News, SAVE database, Supreme Court, Texas, Trump Administration, Voting Rights
The Supreme Court cleared the way Friday for election officials to resume using a federal immigration status verification system to check voter rolls for potential noncitizens — a significant victory for President Donald Trump’s administration, but one that’s likely to have little impact on the November midterm elections. The unsigned opinion hit pause on a lower court’s ruling from June…
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by Jake Johnson | Sep 28, 2026 | Article, elections, midterms, Politics and Movements: US, Reprint, Trump, Voting Rights
by Steve Benen | Sep 28, 2026 | 2026 election, elections, Maddowblog, White House
Plenty of Republican officials and candidates have recently overhauled their websites to remove references and images of Donald Trump, but when Rep. Byron Donalds did the same thing, it was a harsh reminder of how just how far the president had fallen.
The Florida congressman, a member of the far-right House Freedom Caucus, has been a sycophantic, election-denying Trump loyalist and surrogate in recent years, tying his fortunes directly to his unapologetic embrace of the president. But as Donalds’ gubernatorial campaign in the Sunshine State reaches the homestretch, he and his team nevertheless thought it would be a good idea to start scrubbing his website.
The changes were hardly subtle. The campaign website used to be filled with references to the incumbent president. The Miami Herald reported, “A button to ‘Chip in to Support Trump Endorsed Byron Donalds’ was at the top of the homepage. ‘TRUMP-ENDORSED Proven Conservative Fighter. BYRON DONALDS’ was the page’s main text. A yellow banner reading ‘ENDORSED BY PRESIDENT TRUMP!’ marked the middle of the homepage and a prominent section quoting Trump’s 2025 endorsement said ‘RUN, BYRON, RUN!’”
Recently, all of these Trump references have been removed, as was a photo of Donalds and his wife, Erika Donalds, posing with Trump.
The president doesn’t appear to be taking it well. On Saturday, Trump responded to the edits to Donalds’ campaign site with a lengthy, 459-word tirade on his social media platform. It read in part:
Another Fake Story is that a very close friend of mine, a man I endorsed very early, Byron Donalds, is taking me off his website and Campaign materials. … The story started with the Woke and
