26 Oct 2026 · 15m · Leila Fadel, Steve Inskeep, Nathan Gonzales, Kerry Khan, Eleanor Beardsley · 17 quoted facts
Republicans redrew 15 House districts to protect their majority, but the plan has fallen well short. Brazil's Lula won re-election against a Bolsonaro challenger. In Europe, student-led movements are reshaping politics from France to Serbia. In each case, the episode argues that existing power has proved more fragile than its holders expected.
The episode's tension is between engineered advantage and popular energy. Republican map-drawing relied on the 2024 electorate, which has since soured on Trump. Lula rallied voters who had stayed home, and Serbia's students beat a strongman's party. Meanwhile, losers dispute results in Brazil, and in France anger on the left may help Marine Le Pen.
Tamara Keith reports that only five of the 15 Republican-drawn districts are rated likely or solid Republican by the Cook Political Report. The rest are toss-ups or lean Democratic, forcing costly campaigns.
Some lines assumed the Trump 2024 electorate, a high watermark. Young and Latino voters have since soured on him, and his approval rating is at a new low.
About 33 million Brazilians skipped round one. Lula ran big marches aimed at younger voters, women and older voters, and finished more than 4 million votes ahead of Flavio Bolsonaro.
Flavio Bolsonaro said the Supreme Court changed the rules by extending voting two hours. But both candidates had asked for an extension, though the court ruled only on Lula's petition.
Serbia's student movement began after a train-station roof collapse killed sixteen people and beat the ruling party after two years of marches. In France, the unrest benefits Marine Le Pen, since the center has no strong candidate.
Mostly not, according to NPR's Tamara Keith. Of 15 districts redrawn to favor Republicans, only five are rated likely or solid Republican, and the rest are toss-ups or lean Democratic.
Keith says some lines were drawn around the 2024 Trump electorate, which was unusually strong. Since then, young and Latino voters have turned against him, and some targeted Democrats chose to fight.
Reporter Kerry Khan says Lula held huge marches and courted younger, women and older voters. He won millions of voters who had skipped round one, ending more than 4 million votes ahead.
No. He asked for the results to be annulled and called what happened inexplicable. He objected to a court order keeping polls open two more hours, although both campaigns had asked for an extension.
Eleanor Beardsley says the triggers differ, including schools, housing costs and corruption, but the movements are mostly leaderless and driven by young people angry about the world left to them. In Serbia, the movement beat the ruling party.
Stated by the speakers. Each quote matches the transcript, which shows what was said, not that it is true.
The Cook Political Report rates only five of the 15 House districts drawn to favor Republicans as likely or solid Republican, with most rated toss-up or leaning Democratic.
“only five of them are rated by the Cook Political Report as either likely or solid Republican. Most are toss-up or lean towards Democrats winning.”
Tamara Keith says some Republican-drawn districts were based on the 2024 Trump electorate, a high point, and that young and Latino voters have since soured on him.
“some of these lines were drawn based on the Trump 2024 electorate, which was a real high watermark. Since then, key pieces of the Trump base have soured on the president, including young voters and Latino voters.”
Under the new lines, Donald Trump would have won North Carolina's first congressional district by more than ten points in 2024, but the race is now rated a toss-up.
“With the new lines, President Trump would have won this district by more than ten points just two years ago. Now it's a toss-up.”
Republican candidate Lori Buckout, a retired Army colonel, lost a race in North Carolina's first district two years earlier and is running again under more favorable lines.
“She's a retired Army colonel who lost when she ran there two years ago, but now the lines are more favorable”
Flavio Bolsonaro is the son of a former right-wing Brazilian president who was jailed for trying to overturn an election.
“The challenger is the son of a right-wing president who was jailed for trying to overturn an election.”
About 33 million Brazilians did not vote in the first round of Brazil's presidential election, and polls predicted Lula was finished.
“Some 33 million Brazilians had sat out that first round, and polls just predicted he was done.”
Lula beat Flavio Bolsonaro by more than 4 million votes in the Brazilian presidential runoff.
“He outperformed Flavio Bolsonaro, the son of the former far-right president, by more than 4 million votes.”
Lula da Silva turned 81 the day after the runoff, and the reporter says he seemed shocked by the turnaround.
“I think Lula, who turns eighty-one tomorrow, was even shocked by the turnaround himself.”
Brazil's Supreme Court ordered polls to stay open two more hours on runoff day, after both candidates requested an extension citing transportation problems and bad weather.
“It ordered polls to stay open for two more hours, but both candidates had requested that extension, citing transportation problems and bad weather.”
Seven conservative presidents were elected in Latin America in the 18 months before Lula's runoff win.
“Seven conservative presidents have been elected in the last eighteen months.”
Lula warned that a Bolsonaro victory would let Donald Trump trample Brazilian sovereignty and pursue Brazil's resources, including rare earth minerals.
“Lula warned that if Bolsonaro won, Trump would trample Brazilian sovereignty and would come for Brazil's resources, including its rare earth mineral reserves.”
According to government figures, more than 100,000 people demonstrated in Paris over the weekend of the French protests.
“Still, more than 100,000 people demonstrated in Paris, according to government figures.”
The French protest movement began in mid-September with high school students demanding better conditions.
“And remember, it started in mid-September with high school students demanding better conditions.”
Marine Le Pen formally launched her third presidential candidacy at a two-day National Rally event in Orleans.
“far-right leader Marine Le Pen, who's running for president for the third time, formally launched her candidacy this weekend at a two-day rally of her party in the town of Orleans”
Emmanuel Macron cannot run again, he is very unpopular, and no viable centrist candidate has emerged for France's next presidential election.
“Macron cannot run again, and no one wants to associate with him because he's so unpopular, and a viable centrist candidate has not yet emerged.”
In Serbia's parliamentary elections, the party of longtime leader Aleksandar Vucic was defeated by a student movement.
“after the party of longtime strongman Alexander Vucic was defeated by a student movement”
Serbia's student protest movement began two years earlier after a train station roof collapse killed sixteen people.
“This movement began two years ago as a student protest movement after a roof collapsed at a train station, killing sixteen people.”
Most districts drawn to favor Republicans are now competitive, undercutting the party's hoped-for firewall in the House.
“Most are toss-up or lean towards Democrats winning.”
Lines based on a peak 2024 electorate met voters who have since soured on Trump, as in North Carolina's first district.
“the Trump 2024 electorate, which was a real high watermark”
A strong get-out-the-vote push turned a first-round second place into a runoff win.
“Lula was just holding huge marches, trying harder to engage with younger voters”
Flavio Bolsonaro asks for annulment and blames a court order that both campaigns had requested.
“He asked for the results to be annulled.”
Lula's win breaks a run of conservative victories that Trump has welcomed, and the White House has stayed silent.
“Seven conservative presidents have been elected in the last eighteen months.”
The movement keeps growing while Marine Le Pen leads polls and the center lacks a candidate.
“More than 400,000 people came out nationwide.”
A movement born from a deadly roof collapse took on corruption and won at the ballot box.
“after a roof collapsed at a train station, killing sixteen people”
We find out soon how redistricting worked out for Republicans.
The party tried to gerrymander its way to an election win. President Trump's party is so unpopular, Republicans are having to fight to keep the districts they created.
I'm Leila Fadel. That's Steve Inskeep, and this is Up First from NPR News. Brazil's president won re-election on Sunday. Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva defeated a right-wing challenger. The challenger is the son of a right-wing president who was jailed for trying to overturn an election. And the son claims this election was unfair, too.
Also, student-led movements are sweeping across European cities. 400,000 people protested in France over the weekend. Young people are in the streets of Italy, Spain, Portugal, and Albania. But how much power are they gaining? Stay with us. We've got the news you need to start your day.
This week on the NPR Politics Podcast, a massive blue wave, a history-making realignment in American politics. What will Democrats do with their power, both in Washington and in states around the country? Listen as we unpack what a new political era could look like this week on the NPR Politics Podcast.
Hey, it's Mike Danforth, executive producer of Wait Wait Don't Tell Me. Here's a great way to get the perks of being an NPR producer without doing any of the work. Join NPR Plus. With NPR Plus, you get extended interviews, inside looks at your favorite shows, and more, all while supporting NPR and never having to pull an all-nighter. Or if you work on one of the news shows, an all-morning-er. Sign up at plus dot npr dot org.
Maya Higa built an animal sanctuary that's closed to the public but welcomes thousands of online visitors every day. All the silly things that animals do when we aren't looking, or when they think we're not looking, we can watch on the live cams. Ideas about understanding wild animals without getting in their way. That's on the TED Radio Hour podcast. Listen on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.
We are nearing the end of election season. Former President Obama spent part of the weekend rallying Democrats in Michigan and Ohio. President Trump is doing everything he can to motivate his party's base to vote.
And we're also going to win a Republican House and a Republican Senate.
Recent polling and recent history lean against that result. The president's party usually suffers in the midterms. Republicans did plan to keep control of the House of Representatives through redistricting, tilting more seats toward the party in power. We have an update this morning on how that plan is working out.
NPR's senior political correspondent Tamar Keith has been looking into it. Tam, good morning.
Good morning.
What did you find in fifteen districts drawn specifically to favor Republicans?
Well, only five of them are rated by the Cook Political Report as either likely or solid Republican. Most are toss-up or lean towards Democrats winning. These are districts that, under the new lines, would have gone for President Trump by a significant margin in 2024. Trump and his political team put a lot of pressure on Republican-led states to redraw these districts. Here's how Nathan Gonzales of Inside Elections describes the current state of play.
Redistricting was supposed to be a firewall for Republicans in this midterm election, and it has just not turned out that way.
Instead, these are some of the most expensive and competitive House races in the country.
Oh, they're having to spend money to even have a chance at keeping them. So Truckloads. wow, what does the president's political team make of the idea that redistricting didn't work?
A Republican strategist involved with midterm races, but who wasn't authorized to speak publicly, pushed back on that characterization, saying redistricting creates new battlefields. It doesn't create outcomes. These are certainly battlefields, uh, with a positive outcome for Republicans very much in question in two thirds of the seats drawn to favor the party's candidates.
Okay, so why would gerrymandering not help as much as the people who did it, uh, probably expected it would?
Yeah, you know, some of these lines were drawn based on the Trump 2024 electorate, which was a real high watermark. Since then, key pieces of the Trump base have soured on the president, including young voters and Latino voters. The president's approval rating is now at a new low. A number of Democratic incumbents who were directly targeted in the new maps decided to stick it out and fight. This, uh, includes people like Congressman Don Davis of North Carolina.
And what he told me is that the lines in North Carolina's first congressional district may have changed, but the issues are universal. You hear so often about affordability, inflation, and cost, but I believe this is becoming for many about survivability, just how they're able to make it and survive, you know, during these tough times.
Okay, I know that was the seat that Republicans felt sure to gain in North Carolina. So how's it working out?
Well, Republicans are nervous about it, so much so that last week, President Trump called the Republican candidate in that district, Lori Buckout, up onto stage with him. She's a retired Army colonel who lost when she ran there two years ago, but now the lines are more favorable, and she leaned into that in front of the MAGA crowd at Trump's rally. And that's simple math. There are more of us. All you gotta do is get out the vote.
With the new lines, President Trump would have won this district by more than ten points just two years ago. Now it's a toss-up.
Math is a little different. Tamara, thanks so much.
Yep, sure thing.
NPR's Tamara Keith. The president of Brazil came back to win Sunday's runoff presidential election.
Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva beat back his toughest election challenge to date. It's a victory for the leftist president against the right-wing wave that has swept much of the Americas.
NPR's Kerry Kohn is in Brasilia, the capital of that country. Kerry, welcome.
Good morning.
Okay, there was this initial round of voting. Lula came in second, not first. How did he make it to first place this time?
It was pretty remarkable. His campaign seemed to really kick into high gear after that loss in the first round of voting. And in the last weeks, Lula was just holding huge marches, trying harder to engage with younger voters, women, and even older voters. He needed to get out the vote. Some 33 million Brazilians had sat out that first round, and polls just predicted he was done. He would need to pick up a large majority of fresh votes in the second round to win, and that's exactly what he did.
Brazilians went to the polls and he captured millions of new votes. He outperformed Flavio Bolsonaro, the son of the former far-right president, by more than 4 million votes. I think Lula, who turns eighty-one tomorrow, was even shocked by the turnaround himself. Here he is last night, very hoarse, speaking to ecstatic supporters in Sao Paulo.
I would like to thank the Brazilian people for the generosity they have shown me for such a long time, he said. He gave a particular shout-out to Brazil's young people, who he said took to the streets to defend democracy. And this was a theme in the last weeks of his campaign that really appears to have galvanized voters that the return of a Bolsonaro to power would be an existential threat to Brazilian democracy.
Okay, uh, did Flavio Bolsonaro, the son of the former president, accept these results?
No, he did not. He asked for the results to be annulled. He said that what happened in Brazil yesterday was, quote, not normal. He, too, seemed stunned by Lula's win. Here he is speaking to reporters late last night outside his party headquarters in Brasilia.
Eh, inexplicable que ha- acontecido o que aconteceu.
It's inexplicable what happened, he said. Bolsonaro pointed to a late ruling by the Supreme Court yesterday. It ordered polls to stay open for two more hours, but both candidates had requested that extension, citing transportation problems and bad weather. But the order to, uh, leave the polls open was made on Lula's request. Bolsonaro, however, complained that allowing the polls to stayed open, quote, changed the rules in the middle of the game.
Hm. Hm. But the order to, uh, leave the polls open was made on Lula's request. Bolsonaro, however, complained that allowing the polls to stayed open, quote, changed the rules in the middle of the game.
I just wanna be totally clear on this. Bolsonaro's side also asked for the polling to be extended, but then when it didn't work out for him, he said it was unfair. Is that what you're telling me?
Yes, that's right, but the Supreme Court ruled on just Lula's petition to keep the polls open for two more hours.
Okay, so how does Lula's victory fit in with other elections in the hemisphere?
Lula appears to have put the brakes on that right-wing swing sweeping Latin America. Seven conservative presidents have been elected in the last eighteen months. Uh, President Trump likes to take credit for those wins, especially as he's been, uh, asserting more dominance in the region. Trump and Lula have frequently clashed, and Lula warned that if Bolsonaro won, Trump would trample Brazilian sovereignty and would come for Brazil's resources, including its rare earth mineral reserves. Um, many Latin American leaders have called to congratulate Lula.
The White House, so far, has been silent.
NPR's Kerry Khan. Thanks so much.
You're welcome.
Okay, young people are shaking things up across Europe, in countries from France to Serbia. Grassroots protest movements begun by students are calling for a change in direction.
In Serbia, they are having a huge impact. A student-led movement beat the party of the longtime nationalist leader in parliamentary elections Sunday.
We start in France, where demonstrations against the government took place again over the weekend. NPR's Eleanor Beardsley had another not quiet weekend in Paris. Hi there, Eleanor. Steve. Okay, we have seen quite a bit of violence in recent weeks. Was the government at least, uh, able to avoid that?
Yes, largely it was, with huge security on the ground and partly by banning protests in some cities and changing protest routes in others. Still, more than 100,000 people demonstrated in Paris, according to government figures. I was out there, despite the last-minute change to their route to avoid Place de la Bastille, that's the Bastille Plaza, a site for uprisings and, of course, a revolution more than 200 years ago.
Hm. Demonstrated in Paris, according to government figures. I was out there, despite the last-minute change to their route to avoid Place de la Bastille, that's the Bastille Plaza, a site for uprisings and, of course, a revolution more than 200 years ago.
So, while the government may be relieved that it avoided the looting and violence, uh, this movement is not waning. More than 400,000 people came out nationwide. And remember, it started in mid-September with high school students demanding better conditions. Now, a broad swath of society has joined in unions, public sector workers calling for more public spending and decrying a capitalist society where they say the rich are getting richer.
How does this affect the political landscape in France, given that we're six months ahead of a presidential election?
Yes, while the far right party, uh, the National Rally, is capitalizing on scenes of violence and looting that we've seen around the protests, far-right leader Marine Le Pen, who's running for president for the third time, formally launched her candidacy this weekend at a two-day rally of her party in the town of Orleans, about a hundred miles south of Paris, under heavy security. Here she is at the rally. Nick après dix ans d'Emmanuel Macron, nous marchons sur un champ.
So she's talking about the state of the country after ten years of President Emmanuel Macron. She uses words like decline, ruin, erasure, riot, and chaos. She's calling for law and order and a renaissance of France. Polls show her as the front-runner in the presidential elections next spring. So it seems the battle lines are being drawn, Steve. The protesters in the street are from the left. For them, she is a horror. But the center is largely absent.
Macron cannot run again, and no one wants to associate with him because he's so unpopular, and a viable centrist candidate has not yet emerged.
Wow, how does that circumstance in France fit in with these other protests throughout Europe?
Yeah, well, they these protests have taken place, you know, in like Spain, Portugal, Italy, Albania, and other countries. The spark that sets them off is sometimes different, but what we're seeing, you know, like schools or affordable housing and even corruption. But what they have in common is they're mostly leaderless. They're being led by young people who are angry about the world that's being left to them. Something astounding happened yesterday in the small but influential Balkan country of Serbia.
Listen to this. That is the joy sweeping Serbia's capital of Belgrade last night after the party of longtime strongman Alexander Vucic was defeated by a student movement. And here is one of those students, Petar Vojnovic, twenty-two years old.
It's crazy out here. Everyone's, uh, screaming victory, victory. It's everyone's celebrating that we got rid of corruption and, uh, primitivism.
This movement began two years ago as a student protest movement after a roof collapsed at a train station, killing sixteen people. The protesters said the shoddy construction highlighted government corruption, lack of accountability, and mafia involvement. They kept up the pressure for two years, holding hundreds mile-long marches, and their powerful movement eventually drew a huge swath of citizens from the middle class and opposition voters who had long wanted a different future and saw finally that it could be possible.
NPR's Eleanor Beardsley in Paris. Thanks so much.
Thank you, Steve.
And that's up first for this Monday, October twenty-sixth. I'm Steve Inskeep.
And I'm Leila Fadel. Today's episode of Up First was edited by Kelsey Snell, Tina Kraja, Tara Neill, Mohamad ElBardicy, and Olivia Hampton. It was produced by Iman Maani and Nia Dumas. Our director is Kaity Kline. We get engineering support from Neisha Heinis. Our technical director is Stacy Abbott. Join us again tomorrow.
Hi, it's Terry Gross, host of Fresh Air.
I interviewed John Turturro, and he was great talking about learning to be a pickpocket for his new movie and how growing up in a volatile home helped him as an actor.
My brother said to me once, I've given you a lot of material. And I said, You know, you're really right. You're right. I said, but at a high cost.
Find it on the NPR app or wherever you listen to Fresh Air. If you're worried about the amount of money flooding into American elections, you're not alone.
I think the longer term effects are a weakening of our democracy and a more corrupt government.
How do we get here? This month, we're looking at how money became so ingrained in our politics. Find these and more stories from the indicator from Planet Money on the NPR app. This message comes from NPR sponsor, the NPR Wine Club. A place to find boutique wines from around the world and bottles inspired by popular NPR shows, as well as to explore the producers, regions, and exciting stories that bring each selection to life. Whether you buy a few bottles or join the club, all purchases support NPR programming and help fund quality reporting.
You can learn more at nprwineclub dot org. Must be twenty-one or older to purchase.