Political Wire

The Lost Descendants of Thomas Jefferson

· Leave a Comment

New Yorker: “America’s longest-running paternity dispute has seemingly come to an end: Thomas Jefferson fathered children with Sally Hemings, his enslaved chambermaid, and the Smithsonian has the DNA to prove it.”

“Richard Kurin, a fifty-year veteran of the institution, launched a top-secret study of the question in 2011. Starting with a few hair samples, he and a team of scientists sequenced Jefferson’s genome and compared it with those of Hemings’s descendants, after a sprawling effort that involved everything from compiling genealogies to scouring rural Virginia for a lost grave.”

Trump Revives Willie Horton Campaign Ad

· Leave a Comment

“As President Donald Trump tries to convince voters that Democrats have let crime run amok, he’s digging into the country’s political past to reference one of the most controversial campaign advertisements that relied heavily on racist tropes,” the Associated Press reports.

“During a campaign stop Wednesday in Gastonia, North Carolina, to stump for Republican U.S. Senate candidate Michael Whatley, Trump resurrected a 1988 George H.W. Bush presidential campaign ad featuring Willie Horton, a Black man convicted of rape and assault after his release through a Massachusetts prison furlough program.”

“A grainy black-and-white prison photo of Horton was used in the ad targeting then-Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis, who was ahead of Bush in the polls. On Wednesday, Trump evoked the Horton ad in an effort to convince voters Democratic former Gov. Roy Cooper, Whatley’s opponent in the Senate race, is soft on crime.”

Democrats Hope Voting Rights Will Drive Black Turnout

· Leave a Comment

“Across the South, from the Mississippi Delta to Georgia’s suburbs, Black Democratic candidates are imploring Black voters to rise up and secure the representation this November that they were expected to be denied with the gutting of the Voting Rights Act,” the New York Times reports.

“The hill is high, and Republicans remain supremely confident, but Democrats are trying to contest races typically seen as too far out of reach.”

From our partner:

October Surprise! 

For a limited time, sign up for a 90-day free trial to Political Wire. 

 

GOP Candidate Doubles Down On Racist Post

· Leave a Comment

“Bo French, the Republican nominee for Texas railroad commissioner, stood by a series of racist social media posts he sent targeting Asian students at the University of Texas, dismissing criticism from fellow Republicans as he campaigns for a seat that oversees the state’s oil and gas industry,” the Washington Sun reports.

“French dismissed the backlash he garnered over his post on X showing a photograph of students celebrating Texas’ football victory over Ohio State, and suggested the students pictured benefitted from discriminatory admissions practices designed to exclude American-born students.”

Wrote French: “Social media is exposing how many Americans have been displaced by foreigners. It’s everywhere and far worse than any of us could imagine.”

Texas Republicans Denounce GOP Statewide Candidate

· Leave a Comment

“Prominent Texas Republicans are denouncing Bo French, a Republican nominee to join the state’s railroad commission, after he made a xenophobic post describing a group of Asian American students attending a University of Texas football game as a ‘problem,'” Politico reports.

French posted a photo on X of UT students celebrating: “I heard UT graduation this year looked like this. I didn’t believe it. The problem is now obviously far worse than anyone imagined.”

Trump Proposes Eliminating Race Questions From Census

· Leave a Comment

“The Trump administration is proposing an overhaul of the 2030 census by eliminating questions about race and ethnicity and restricting how immigrants would be counted when census results are used for allotting congressional seats,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

“The Commerce Department, which oversees the census, proposed not to count most immigrants toward the population used to apportion seats for the House, unless they have become citizens or hold permanent resident status.”

NPR: Trump officials propose sweeping changes to the census that would reshape voting maps.

Trump Calls Democratic Candidates ‘Jihadists’

· Leave a Comment

“President Trump on Monday described Democratic candidates in the midterm elections as ‘jihadists,’ adding to Islamophobic statements recently made by Republican elected officials,” the New York Times reports.

“Mr. Trump also delivered another tirade against people of Somali descent, saying: ‘They’re not smart, they have no aptitude, they have nothing going, and they’re telling us how to run our country.'”

Trump Census Plan Excludes Undocumented Immigrants

· Leave a Comment

“The U.S. Department of Commerce, which oversees the Census Bureau, is circulating a proposed rule that would cease the collection of demographic data on racial minorities and LGBTQ+ people and prevent undocumented immigrants from being counted in the 2030 census,” Wired reports.

“The decision could have far-reaching implications for federal funding, particularly in states where there are substantial numbers of racial and ethnic minorities, as well as on immigrant communities across the country.”

Tennessee Black Voters Surge After Redistricting

· Leave a Comment

“Democratic turnout for House primaries in a majority-Black Tennessee county surged to the highest level in a decade Thursday, the latest sign that redistricting may be energizing Black voters across the South,” the Washington Post reports.

”A fifth of active registered voters cast a ballot in three Democratic U.S. House primaries held Thursday in Shelby County, which includes Memphis. That’s more than double the turnout percentage for similar contests in 2024.”

Avila Chevalier Plans to Join Congressional Black Caucus

· Leave a Comment

“Darializa Avila Chevalier, the democratic socialist who ousted New York Rep. Adriano Espaillat in a June primary upset, plans to seek membership in both the Congressional Black Caucus and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus once sworn in, her campaign told Semafor,” Semafor reports.

“That would make her only the second Afro-Latino lawmaker to sit in both caucuses simultaneously; Espaillat was blocked from Black Caucus membership.”

Corporate Boardroom Diversity Sinks to Decade Low

· Leave a Comment

“A new analysis released Tuesday shows corporate boardroom diversity among S&P 500 companies has dropped to its lowest level in more than a decade,” NewsNation reports.

“The analysis from global advisory search firm Spencer Stuart found that diverse board appointments among S&P 500 companies have been on the decline since 2021, when it peaked at 72 percent. It also found that fewer new directors are joining boardrooms than at any time since 2026.”

“Today, diverse directors hold 49.3% of the seats.”

DNC Risks Diluting Southern Black Voter Power

· Leave a Comment

Politico: ”Nearly 40 years ago, the DNC unwittingly elevated Jesse Jackson by frontloading its schedule with Southern states. At the time, committee members hoped the shift would help a moderate white candidate, who they thought could more easily win a general election. Instead, Southern Black voters rallied to Jackson’s history-making candidacy. On Friday, the party’s Rules and Bylaws Committee again sought to push its nomination fight to the South.”

”This time, though, the panel’s decision to lift South Carolina to first-in-the-nation status was done expressly with the state’s Black voters in mind. The party wanted to reward their most loyal constituency and those voters who, in the modern era, have invariably determined its nominees.”

”Yet in making South Carolina first overall, rather than keeping the state in its previous role as first in the South, the party risks diluting the influence of Southern Black voters.”

White Separatists Launch Rural Settlements

· Leave a Comment

“A white separatist group is openly planning a network of whites-only settlements across rural America that aim to withstand legal challenges by operating essentially as private clubs,” Axios reports.

“The communities are launching in the Ozarks, Appalachia and the South as the Trump administration has backed off prosecuting many civil rights cases.”

”They’re also surfacing at a time when the nation is becoming increasingly diverse, and as the racist ‘great replacement theory’ has become a staple of far-right politics in recent years.”

The New Push to Transform America’s Racist Landmarks

· Leave a Comment

“A former Ku Klux Klan hall in Texas is becoming an arts center — one of several racist landmarks across the U.S. that communities are trying to turn from symbols of terror into sites of reparation,” Axios reports.

“Years after the backlash against Confederate monuments, new fights have emerged over what to do with remaining physical reminders of particularly hurtful racism — tear them down, preserve them, reinterpret them or return them to communities harmed by them.”

Black Democrats Fight for Political Survival in the South

· Leave a Comment

Wall Street Journal: “The unprecedented mid-decade redrawing of maps by both parties has shaken voters across the country, but it is having an amplified impact in many Southern states where Black voters are set to lose power. Those states, including Alabama as well as Tennessee and Louisiana, have new freedom to draw maps without having to carve out majority-minority seats under rules that emerged from the civil-rights era.”

Taegan Goddard

Taegan Goddard

Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire -- which for more than two decades has been one of the nation's most influential political news sites.

More about Taegan Goddard →