Each week on The Newsfeed, host Paris Jackson and a team of veteran journalists dive deep into one topic and provide impactful reporting, interviews and community insights from sources you can trust. Each day this week, this post will be updated with a new story from the team.
WA 3rd District Congressional race deemed a toss-up
Story published 10/05/2026
This week, we dive into pressing local and national issues concerning voters – after Cascade PBS hosted a recent live taping of the NPR Politics Podcast at Cornish Playhouse here in Seattle.
Among the wide-ranging topics, the hosts Miles Parks, Mara Liasson, and Tamara Keith discussed the tight Washington 3rd Congressional District race between Democratic incumbent Democrat Marie Gluesenkamp Perez and Republican John Braun.
The three NPR Politics Podcast hosts delved into Washington’s high-stakes congressional race that includes Vancouver and Longview.
Tamara Keith: They are both small business owners. They both speak about tariffs. Braun told our colleague, Sage Miller, that tariffs is an issue that he'd like toaddress with President Trump if he gets to Washington. This seat is rated as a toss-up. It is one of about 21 toss-up races according to the Cook Political Report; in the whole country. Out of 435, there are 21 toss ups; that tells you just sort of how small this map is. You know, this is a seat that had been Republican, she flipped it blue in 2022. Gluesenkamp Perez has clashed with Democrats somewhat regularly, um, because she is far more moderate.”
Miles Parks: “Well, you have to, I mean, it, Donald Trump has carried, has carried this district in 16, 20 and 24. So you really have no choice if you want to win elections, but to clash with Democrats, I feel like."
Keith: “Right. And, we talk about how Democrats, the Democratic Party has a lot of challenges. If the party wants to be long-term sustainable, they have to win in red districts or currently red districts and red states.”
All this week, we’ll bring your more excerpts from the recent live recording of the NPR Politics podcast in Seattle, which dives further into the key issues for voters this election season. You’ll also hear from some local voters who attended the event and shared their biggest concerns.
Polls show AI is a surprise top issue for voters
Story published 10/06/2026
Before the recent live taping of the NPR Politics podcast in Seattle, one attendee told us AI is one of her biggest concerns heading into the midterms.
“It's time for a government to regulate what's happening and to not leave it up to big business to do it themselves. And so, we're going to need accountability and action from lawmakers to regulate an industry that, up until now, has done what it's wanted to do,” said Seattle resident Erin MacDougall.
During the live recording, the podcast hosts talked about how AI was somewhat of a surprise top issue for voters.
Miles Parks: “It feels to me, linked in some way to the affordability argument.
Mara Liasson: “Oh, absolutely.”
Parks: “Can you explain that?”
Liasson: Well, some of the antipathy to data centers is because they cause people's electricity bills to go up. That's not the case in every state. Virginia actually drove a very hard bargain with the AI companies and made sure that they paid a lot of money to local communities there. But most states didn't. So there's the data centers which are loud and noisy and dirty, and they cause your electricity bills to go up. Then there's just the AI, the job killing aspect of AI. Yes, some of the data centers provide some jobs in certain communities, but people overall, bipartisan majorities, think AI is not going to be good for them or their kids.
Parks: To me the AI story that is not being talked about enough is how much it is a money in politics story, because all of these companies have so much money. And it is the dark cloud looming over a lot of these candidates... There's reporting that shows that Democratic strategists are telling battleground Democrats not to talk about AI because they're worried that AI money is going to drop $30 million in their battleground.
Polls say voters think immigration policies have gone too far
Story published 10/07/2026
Before the live taping of the NPR Politics podcast multiple attendees brought up immigration enforcement as a concern of theirs ahead of the midterms.
“We saw in Minnesota and across the nation the overreach from ICE and just the terrible brutality that's happened. So by, again, trying to send a strong message that not only are we electing people who are opposed to that, but also who are willing to say things like 'abolish ICE,’ that's really a priority for our immigrant neighbors here,” said Seattle voter Kaiden Cook.
The podcast hosts discussed how this issue could be a problem for Republicans this election season.
Mara Liasson: “Well, immigration used to be the Trump administration's best issue, polling wise. It still is, but it's dropped a tremendous amount. And Donald Trump did really well among Hispanics in 2024.
But those numbers have dropped, and you even have Latino members of Congress criticizing - not the overall initial explanation of what the policy was - which was to deport undocumented immigrants with criminal records. People are fine with that. What they didn't like is when their grandma's CNA was deported or the people who work in the meatpacking plant. So majorities of Americans, according to polls, think that Trump's immigration policies have gone too far.
And one Hispanic member of Congress, Maria Elvira Salazar, she comes from the 27th District of Florida... (in a recent ad) She says 50% of the 50,000 people that were detained had no criminal records. And she said the same Hispanics who helped you get to the White House in 2024 feel betrayed today. And that's a pretty big break for a Republican.”
“Negative partisanship” will be a factor during the midterms
Story published 10/08/2026
“Try and find someone, let's say, almost anyone, to take over the top job at the White House. Spare us the embarrassment that we're suffering globally with the person that's there now,” said Seattle Voter Gifford Jones.
President Trump’s not on the ballot this year, that’s the very definition of a midterm election. But as that voter and others told us before a recent live taping of the NPR Politics Podcast, voting against President Trump is a major motivation. And the podcast hosts say, that’s a major factor nationwide.
Miles Parks: President Trump, who is literally saying at this midterm Republican National Convention, ‘pretend I'm on the ballot, pretend I'm on the ballot.’ Have you been surprised, Mara, that that has been the message, considering all the numbers, every possible number, saying that might not be a smart campaign strategy?
Mara Liasson: Well, it's unusual, but Trump is a different kind of president. I mean, historically, midterm elections are referendums on the incumbent president and his party if it happens to hold a majority in Congress, which the Republicans do. And Donald Trump believes that if he was on the ballot, Republicans would do better. And that's why he's telling his supporters to pretend that he's on the ballot. The problem is he is at historically low approval ratings - under 40% - and he's a motivator for his base, but also for Democrats. And one of the most powerful forces in politics today is something called negative partisanship. People go into the voting booth and they cast their vote not because they love the guy they're voting for, but to stop that other guy because the whole world will collapse if the other team wins because we're so polarized and hyper-partisan.
My favorite New Yorker cartoon is the two dogs go into a bar and one says to the other: ‘it's not enough that we succeed. Cats must also fail.’
But the big question is, can Democrats capitalize on this? Donald Trump is historically unpopular, but the Democratic brand is historically unpopular, and that's what they've got to fix.
The affordability crisis is the top issue for voters in the midterms
Story published 10/09/2026
Before the live recording of the NPR Politics Podcast in Seattle, voters told us about how important of an issue affordability is to them, heading into the midterm election.
“I'm super concerned about the affordability crisis that Americans across the country are dealing with. I think here in Washington, we have a particularly high cost of living and a very regressive tax system, and people are really feeling hard times just to access groceries and healthcare,” said Seattle voter Erin MacDougall.
“I work on housing here in Seattle, and so that is always front of mind, but that really just bleeds into affordability, broadly. People can't afford rent. People can't afford gas even though I don't drive, so I don't really care that much,’ Seattle voter Kaiden Cook said, laughing. “But people can't afford these things. And so, you know, neither party is really presenting a message that can actually deliver that right now.”
The hosts of the NPR Politics podcast said this is the most personal issue for voters in the midterms.
Mara Liasson: I think the Republican messaging has two tracks and they're kind of contradictory. One is, as you said, the President, who sometimes makes fun of the whole idea, says affordability is a Democratic hoax. Or sometimes he says that he's solved the problem of affordability, that prices are coming down, the economy is booming, we're the hottest economy in the world. The problem is that he's right on some metrics: stock market good, sometimes GDP good. You can't eat GDP. And the thing that matters most to voters are prices. Not the rate of inflation, but prices. And these are people, mostly middle-class people. They aren't poor, they just are broke, and they can't afford the things that make up a middle-class lifestyle. And the Republican message is not addressing those concerns
Miles Parks: This is what I don't fully understand about the way President Trump has messaged on this, really the last two years. I felt like coming out of the 2024 election, the big takeaway from how President Biden talked about the economy and about affordability was you can't just tell voters everything's okay. At some point, you have to kind of meet them where they are. And that's why I think I always go back to at the beginning of the Iran War when President Trump, what did he say? ‘I'm not thinking about Americans financial situations at all’ or something along those lines ,that was like, that was shocking to hear.\
Tamara Keith: But essentially what he was saying is, when I'm thinking about the war, I'm not worried about how much things cost. But Americans are thinking about the war and they are thinking about how much things cost and they are very unhappy.
Parks: And it's a very short amount of time that a lot of these Republicans have to be able to make that pivot towards the general election. Right? Because voting has already begun in many states. And so I think a lot of Republicans were very scared of saying something like ‘the Iran War needs to end’ during primary season. And so now they're trying to make that pivot while people are literally getting ballots in the mail, like right now.
Keith: Also, I think during primary season, a lot of them believed the war was going to end. I mean, President Trump said it's going to end in six weeks. A lot of people, including voters, believed that. Then there were these sort of fits and starts of cease fires and talks. And, you know, every other day he was saying they want to talk really badly, they want a deal. This is going to end. And I think that a lot of people sort of put their politics on hold waiting to see if it would end. But now the President is saying he doesn't expect it to end before the midterms.
Liasson: But now the antipathy to the war has become bipartisan. More Republicans are supportive of it. But what we're seeing is a real convergence on all these economic populist issues, whether it's tariffs, the war in Iran, higher prices. There's really a convergence between left and right on this. And I think that's something to watch.
EDITOR'S NOTE: A previous version of this story identified Erin MacDougall as Karen MacDougal. We apologize for the error
