The Daily Signal - How Mass Immigration Is Reshaping the West | Nick Freitas

Episode Date: September 28, 2026

Mass immigration, assimilation, and national identity are reshaping political debates across the West. Nick Freitas joins “The Midterm Report” to discuss his new documentary, “The Immigration Crisis That Will Destroy the West,” which examines how Britain has changed in recent decades and what lessons its experience could hold for the United States. Freitas argues that one of the quickest ways to destabilize a nation is to give it an identity crisis. Drawing on his travels across the United Kingdom, he discusses immigration, assimilation, cultural differences, and why he believes Americans should pay attention to what is happening in Britain. Freitas also weighs in on the constitutional amendments before Virginia voters and discusses what Americans can do in their own families, communities, and political institutions. Also on the program, Rob Bluey is joined by Daily Signal state correspondents Joe Thomas, Rebecca Downs, and Emily Madeiros for the latest from Virginia, Ohio, and Texas. They break down key races and ballot measures, as well as the issues driving voters ahead of Election Day, including immigration, data centers, and the battle for control of Congress. NEW FILM by the Heritage Foundation: “Preventable: The System That Failed My Daughter.” Available now.   https://youtu.be/HxiwOSSRT6s?si=r9k6BFD-iMmvnvpn Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the Daily Signal podcast, where we provide intelligence for the intelligent. Now, without further ado, here's today's take. How do you demoralize and destabilize a nation? And I start off with, in the simplest terms, you give in an identity crisis. And I think we're suffering that from the West in general, and we're starting to see it become a significant problem in the United States. And the reason why I thought it was important to do a juxtapose between the U.K. and the United States is because I want people to realize just how quickly you can lose something that you think is just built into the system. Like, of course the United States is going to be the way it is.

Of course, it's going to be strong and powerful. Of course, it's going to be protected from some of these things that we see taking place in other parts in the world. And I want to be able to understand that there's no guarantee of that. Hi, everyone. I'm Rob Bleley. And welcome back to the Midterm Report, the Daily Signals Election and Politics podcast. We are now in week three of our countdown to election. Day, and we've got a packed show for you today. Coming up, former Virginia delegate,

Nick Fratis, joins me to talk about his new documentary, The Immigration Crisis, that will destroy the West. Then we'll check in with three of the Daily Signal's state correspondence for the latest on key races in Texas, Ohio, and Virginia. But before we get to all of that, I wanted to share something from my appearance this week on NBC's Meet the Press. I was invited on as part of a panel discussion about a new NBC News poll on the midterm elections. Unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to talk about what I thought was one of the poll's most interesting findings that Republicans were viewed more favorably than Democrats by an eight-point margin. But I did get an opportunity to address another important issue shaping this election.

Republicans have made progress on one of voters' biggest concerns, the economy, inflation has eased considerably from the highs that Americans experienced during Joe Biden's presidency. At the same time, though, rising gas and diesel prices tied to the Iran war, could threaten some of those gains and put renewed pressure on family budgets. Look, we all see it as we pass gas stations up and down the road every day of the week. Still, the poll numbers contained some encouraging news for Republicans. Take a look at this clip from Meet the Press. Is there any way, Rob, for Republicans to get away from this price issue that the war has, in fact, led to a direct increase of diesel and gas prices and all the trickle-down effects of that? Maybe change the subject. Kelly, your poll, the NBC poll showed that Republicans still hold a decisive advantage on border security, crime, and immigration.

So if they can focus perhaps on the successes in those areas, maybe voters don't pay as much attention. Well, there you have it. Heading into Election Day, Republicans may have a stronger message than many people realize. the question is whether they can effectively communicate it to voters over these final weeks of the campaign. We won't have to wait too long to find out. Election Day is less than 40 days away. Now, let's turn to my conversation with Nick Fratus. But first, here's a preview of his new documentary, The Immigration Crisis that Will Destroy the West.

Take a look. Many Americans are going to have a big wake-up call. We have never seen net migration as high as it has been in the last few years. This year there have been more people coming to the UK in small boats than ever before. You did an extreme thing to the country. Britain is facing a migrant crime epidemic. We don't actually know where they're coming from, who they are, how old they are. Why would you let in millions of people who are unvetted, if not to change the country from within?

There is no other word for it, demographic replacement. England's a blueprint for America. It's coming. Yeah? It's just a blueprint. thousands of daily migrant crossings. A political earthquake threatens to reshape America. We are showing there is a new path for politics in our country. Not all cultures are the same. You cannot ban shedia.

America is a nation of immigrants. We are a nation of immigrants. We are a nation of immigrants. We are a nation of immigrants. We're a nation of immigrants. The immigration crisis. Watch now on the Heritage Foundation's YouTube channel. We're joined on The Daily Signal by Nick Freitas.

Nick, thanks so much for being with us today. And thank you for the time. that you've spent creating this powerful new documentary. It's called The Immigration Crisis that will destroy the West. We have written about it at The Daily Signal. Obviously, we just showed an ad, a 60-second trailer for it. And this show, what can you tell us about this film and why you decided it was so important for you to invest your time making it?

Well, first of all, it's certainly wouldn't have been possible without heritage support. So I can't thank you enough, both for, what you get to bring it together and bringing forward the subject matter experts. Because one of the things that I'm adamant about is I don't like to just talk about problems. I like to actually talk about solutions and what people can practically do. And heritage is an outstanding resource for that. But the reason why I think it's so fundamental, you can see it right there in the trailer when I'm doing my interview with Sean Ryan. And he asked me as a former Green Beret because we specialize in unconventional warfare and counterinsurgency.

He goes, how do you demoralize and destabilize a nation? And I start off with, in the simplest terms, you give it an identity crisis. And I think we're suffering that from the West in general, and we're starting to see it become a significant problem in the United States. And the reason why I thought it was important to do a juxtapose between the U.K. and the United States is because if we go back to our earliest history, you look at our Declaration of Independence, 56 of the signers, or 54 of the 56 signers were settlers from the British Empire. or specifically the British Isles. You look at the signing of the Constitution, very similar. And so a lot of our political, social, and theological traditions come from England. And to watch what's going on to England and shut such a short period of time and then to try to

understand how similar things are happening in the United States and how there are very similar patterns to how it is happening and why it is happening, I thought was critical. because I want people to realize just how quickly you can lose something that you think is just built into the system. Like, of course, the United States is going to be the way it is. Of course, it's going to be strong and powerful. Of course, it's going to be protected from some of these things that we see taking place in other parts in the world. And I want to people understand that there's no guarantee of that. When you open the film with that scene where you're walking down the street,

I mean, and you talk about your experience in the military. and I think at least in my case, and I would imagine many viewers just do not expect you to say that you are in England. And I think that that's one of the things that really struck me is that as we've done in our coverage of Texas and in other parts of this country, really communities are being transformed already. And Americans are starting to wake up to this if they haven't already been alerted to what's going on in their own backyard. But it does seem that there are lessons that we can learn from Europe and hopefully make some changes here in the United States. But it won't be easy because this is a generation, if not decades-long effort on the part of others to really radically change the composition of our society. So what were those things that stood out in your mind that you see happening in Europe that we need to be most mindful of as we approach not only, you know,

a midterm election this year, a presidential election in 2020. I would imagine these are going to be issues that surface among voters' top concerns. Well, the first thing that you see being mentioned over and over again, even from the people in the UK, even from figures as controversial as Tommy Robinson, is that this is not an issue of race. The left likes to categorize at that because then they think they can shut down debate. Well, then we don't get to look at statistics, then we don't get to look at crime rates, then we don't get to look at the sort of obvious cultural changes that are taking place right before our eyes. The moment they can make this about racism or xenophobia or Islamophobia, we're all supposed to shut up.

And the bottom line is people are rejecting that. But what they are noticing is something that is far more important. And that's the idea of cultural dynamics. Some cultures blend very well together. Other cultures do not. When you have cultures with diametrically opposed worldviews, I'm not talking about differences in dress or festivals or food. I'm talking about diametrically opposed views. on the fundamental components of what builds a high trust society.

That's political traditions, social traditions, theological traditions, economic traditions. When you mass import people from very, very different places, who have no genuine interest in assimilating, they might like the economic opportunity that you provide, they might like the general stability that you provide, but when they have no interest in actually assimilating or understanding why that security or economic opportunity exists in the first place,

well then you're asking for an incohesive and ultimately destructive encounter. And that's what's been going on. And what people need to understand is that's what the debate is about fundamentally. It's about cultural differences and understanding that not all cultures cohere and not all of them assimilate well and not all of them get along with one another. The other thing is is ending this narrative that we all have to shut up the moment we're accused of ill intent. Now, are there some people out there have ill intent? Absolutely. There's bad people in the world. I don't think anybody disputes this. But the vast, I mean, the people that we talk to on, you know, whether it was at the marches in UK or just people in the United States, it's never this, you know, horrific. You know, whenever they use the word phobia, you generally know they're treating.

Phobia means an irrational fear or hatred for something. Well, first of all, not all fears are irrational. right and not all disagreement is hatred and this is the part where the UK is demonstrative of what happens when you have a people group where both the left which you kind of anticipate supporting this but also the right are so terrified of being called mean names by the opposition that they will they will cover up things that are just horrific when one of the things that we do in the documentary that is heart-wrenching is we go into some of the details with the grooming gang scandal in the UK. And when you start to look at the stats and you realize that, no, this wasn't a few thousand

young British girls. This was upwards of hundreds of thousands of British girls over several decades. And primarily, it was about 88% Pakistani men that were associated in the organization of what essentially was this human trafficking scandal. And the fact that you had officers, you had members of the British constabulary who were afraid to rigorously go after and prosecute this because they didn't want to be called Islamophobic. I mean, that should, on one side, that should just absolutely baffle us. But on the other side, we should start to recognize how far America has gone down this path. How many times have,

how many times where you've been talking about something that you just thought was common sense, that the moment somebody on the left showed offense, you immediately started to moderate your language or you immediately, oh, no, I didn't mean that. Or, oh, no, I'm a good person. look, I think we should be precise in our language. I think we should be good advocates of what we believe and articulate what we believe clearly and respectfully. But this idea of offense being a substitute for an argument, this goes way beyond the debate stage. It is now impacting public policy in a way that is having drastic effects in the UK and the United States. And we've just got to get past the fact that the other side doesn't.

like us. This is a part of their political and philosophical strategy. And when you recognize it as such, all of a sudden you're not intimidated by it as much. So it was understanding the scale, understanding how we got here. And then the third part really was about this idea of what do we actually do about this? If we want to preserve our culture and our way of life, which we have every right to do, well, then how do we do that in such a way which actually protects the principles that we believe in and that we cherish and that we want to pass on to future generations. And so that ended up being kind of like the three main pillars

of what we were going after. Well, there's a couple follow-up questions coming out of that. First of all, we're talking to Nick Fratus. He's the creator of a new film called The Immigration Crisis that will destroy the West. And you can find more information in the show notes. We'll make sure that we leave a link to watch the full film. are produced in conjunction with the Heritage Foundation and the Blaze.

And the Daily Signal is certainly proud to shine the spotlight on this issue. Nick, that is one of the things that struck me as you were talking about the grooming gangs there in the United Kingdom. There seemed to be almost a media blackout among the establishment or the legacy media outlets in that country. And I feel that there's also a concern that the American can people have that they're not getting the truth about what's happening in their own country. And so that's one of the reasons I applaud you for having the courage to tell this story.

And certainly one of the things that we try to do at the Daily Signal. But to your point about taking back that culture, tell me about some practical steps that you would just give to Americans who are going about their daily lives and they see things happening maybe in their neighborhood or their community. what are things as a former delegate from the Commonwealth of Virginia, what do you tell them that they can do? Let's leave them with some action items here. So the first thing they need to understand is like, look, you can spend a lot of time on social media. I definitely think people should get out there and vote and understand what they're voting for.

Getting involved in primaries is one of the primary ways that they can, no pun intended, one of the primary ways they can replace bad politicians that might be on their side with ones that are actually serious about doing something. but we need a lot more participation in the primaries. Right now it's maybe 7 to 8% of the voting population participates in primaries. But the thing that you have the most control over is your own family and children. And what's fascinating is I run into a lot of conservative parents that are like, I don't know what's happening in my kids. And I always say, well, I served four years on the Education Committee in the Virginia House of Delegates,

and I served two years as the chairman for the subcommittee on high. higher education. Let me tell you exactly what is happening to your kids. Your perception of what public school represents has been drastically altered by a political ideology that has inserted itself into every level of education. We used to expect some of the ridiculous stuff in the university. And we kind of looked at it as, yeah, well, the university is where you go and you study different ideas and concepts. But the crazy stuff largely stays contained to campus. No, it does. It more and more, what you find happening is the same leftists that want to push cultural Marxism, the same leftists that want to push completely unregulated mass migration

that want general amnesty for people that are in the country illegally. These are the ones that have largely taken control of almost all of your institutions of higher education. And one of the areas that they are most influential in is the education department. So if you think your, if you think your standard university is, you know, maybe 80% left wing, okay, well, the education department is more like 95% left wing. And that's because the left has generally understood that there's two ways that they can be competitive in politics. One is mass immigration.

So they can bring in a bunch of people that are not familiar with the traditions. They can offer all kinds of welfare programs and things like that, which create a level of dependency. And now they have what they believe is a loyal voting demographic. The other way is they control education. So if again, if the left isn't having enough of their own kids, and they're not, this is well documented, they do not have enough of their own kids to replace their own votes, well, then they have to get those votes some way. Immigration is one, education is the other.

And so what I would tell, you know, conservative parents out there is trying to look for alternatives to your standard government-run school system is really important. If you have to be involved in it, then you're going to need to be on it. You cannot just assume that because you live and maybe a nice rural, conservative Christian community, that those values are going to be reflected. Even if you have good teachers, because the teachers don't select the curriculum, the number of teachers I run into that are essentially behind enemy lines right now, that they see the curriculum, they see the things that are being pushed. And they are doing the Lord's work trying to not indoctrinate kids. But the bottom line is, is that the system is set up against them. And so I would just say one of the most relevant.

things that you can do on a day-to-day basis is you actually teach your kids the actual history of the United States. You teach them about the things that actually inform the United States. Heritage is, by the way, an outstanding resource for this. The number of online lectures, the books, the papers, all the works that they've done, not just about current political policy, but what actually created the United States. The Heritage Foundation, I think you guys were the first to do a clause-by-clos analysis of the United States Constitution, which goes beyond just the plain language and explains what was going out at the time. What were the debates? What were they thinking? When you start educating your children on this, instead of just delegating all of that

over to a left-wing political establishment, all of a sudden, your kids start to understand why it's so important, why it's so, first of all, why it's so beautiful. Obviously, not all of American history is wonderful on puppy dogs and lollipops, but when you look at the full scope of human history and you recognize that this place is so special that literally millions of people risk life and limb to try to get here. That's one of the things I always like to point out that one of the ways you know America is wonderful. It is people that supposedly shouldn't like it are trying to get in constantly.

And the people who are already here who hate it never want to leave. Right. So the education component is so important. And then when it comes to the politics, a lot of times people are, well, what can I really do about it. I vote. I do this. The thing that I try to tell them is, if you've only got a limited amount of time to dedicate to politics, you need to find organizations that take the issues you take seriously and are actively working on it. Because not everybody is going to be a politician, not everyone's going to be a heritage foundation. But when you got a heritage foundation that's already

doing this work, you can come alongside and help them. When you got a heritage action, which will send you emails going, this bill that you really care about it is up before, committee, we need you to make calls. Well, now all of a sudden, and you having to do a ton of guess work, you just get your notification, and that's how you know to be active on that particular moment in that particular time. And it's that sort of coordinated effort that I think people need to start looking at. What can I do in my own personal life? And then how can I team with organizations that are already doing this work and enhance it? Nick, that's great advice as somebody who has decided that public school isn't the pathway for my own kids, despite,

being a public school graduate myself, I encourage people to explore what other opportunities are out there. I realize that sometimes, you know, financial considerations come into account there. I have one final quick question. I couldn't let you go without asking about what's at stake in Virginia as somebody who served in that state. A couple of big constitutional changes on the ballot this year, one on the issue of life, one on the issue of marriage. Any closing thoughts? Early voting has already started in Virginia. I know because I voted on Friday. Go for it. I will tell you this. I would highly encourage a no vote on all three constitutional amendments. And when you look at the descriptions they put, I just want you to remember, the left is the one that

wrote the descriptions for it. And when you look at the advertising, I just want you to remember that the same Democrat politicians that were telling you that they were just trying to do moderate things immediately got into power and did a lot of extreme radical things. And it's so the thing you need to understand is just because you read a description or just because you see an ad or you receive a mailer on this, I'm telling you, the left feels no obligation to be open and honest about what they're trying to do. No one, no one running in Virginia during the last election cycle said, if you elect us, we're going to try to drastically alter the maps, change the constitution and make it a

to one Democrat state in a state that is relatively 50-50. No one ran on that. No one ran on, hey, if you elect us, we're going to refuse to prosecute illegal immigrants that have multiple convictions. We're going to let them out early and they're going to murder Virginia citizens. Nobody campaigned on that. And yet, that is what they did. So when you look at these constitutional amendments,

here's what I want you to understand. When it talks about legalizing gay marriage, this is not just a question of gay marriage, This is a question of whether or not they are eventually going to be able to sue you as a Christian pastor because you don't want to sanctify a gay marriage because it doesn't work within your religion. And oh, by the way, they won't prosecute mosques. They won't prosecute mams. They will go after you because they selectively enforce the law. That's what they do all the time.

When it comes to abortion through all nine months worth of pregnancy, what most people need to understand, this isn't just about abortion. They have reproductive rights. What does that mean? If your nine-year-old wants to transition because their school counselors convince them that they're actually a boy and they want to start going through drugs or they want to start going through surgical procedures, can you tell them no? Or is that an infringement on their reproductive rights? Now, what's interesting is see a price who was carrying that legislation.

It's already illegal to sterilize a minor. Really? Then why were you doing it? in Virginia in the name of transgenderism. See, they will tell you, you got nothing to fear. That's ridiculous. That won't ever happen. Well, in Massachusetts, the state of Massachusetts just kidnapped a child away from their

parents. Why? Because the parents refused to affirm their gender. So they took their teenage daughter away. Right? And then when it comes to the whole restoration of rights, understand something. The same Democrat, I know, because I was there for these debates on the House floor. the same Democrats that told me, right, that it was perfectly morally justified and a good thing to support abortion through all nine months of pregnancy.

That means a woman can have a baby with fingerprints and a heartbeat and can feel pain and still get an abortion simply because her planned parenthood doctor said so. Right? The same people that told me that was moral and righteous. Then told me that I was being unchristian when I didn't want to automatically restore voting rights to child rapists. Because what they're going to advertise is, you know, gosh, that poor kid, he sold some drugs when he was 19 and he was in a bad situation and he served his time. And now we just want him, we want to make him a fully fledged citizen of the Commonwealth again. That's all we want. Okay. And if it had been just for that kid, I think most of us would have said, yeah, we understand how you could want to do that. And if they've been reformed in jail and they've learned their lesson. But they're giving it to everybody. That kid gets voting rights restored the same as somebody. that gets let out of jail early for compassionate parole after committing murder, after owning child pornography, after producing child pornography. And when we pointed out, that is what your bill does. If you wanted to reduce it to something smaller, we could have had agreement. But no, you wanted to

include everybody. Why? Because it's all about expanding their voter base. I'm sorry, but I don't know about you. I don't want convicted child rapists determining what the laws of the land are. And so if you vote yes on any of these, understand you're not getting the little happy, moderate version of what these bills do. You will get the most extreme version because what we know is whenever the left is in power, they will get the most extreme version they can possibly get away with. But they will use whatever marketing techniques they need to in order to sell it to a population that quite frankly isn't paying that much attention. Well, thank you for explaining it. And thank you also for looking at the long term consequences,

which I think are important for people to realize, because as you've indicated on all three of these issues, could have massive implications, will have massive implications for the Commonwealth of Virginia. Nick, again, thank you for the work that you did on this documentary. Again, we will make sure that we leave a link in the show notes for everybody to watch it and encourage everybody to follow Nick on YouTube

and all the other social media platforms where you can get his frequent updates on things that are going on, not only in the world of politics, but also culture. We appreciate the time you spent with us today. It's my pleasure. Thanks for having me, Rob. Hello, this is Victor Davis-Hansson for The Daily Signal. I have a new book out on September 8th of this year. I think you're going to enjoy it. It's called Counter-Revolution, the fall and rise of Donald Trump and the MAGA movement. It starts right after January 6th, and it details the lack of popularity of Donald Trump, the invective that he endured, the five civil and criminal trials, the effort to get him off the ballot,

the raid on Marlago, the two impeachments earlier, one in which he was tried as a private citizen, and yet he came back. How did he come back? And why did he come back? I explained in the book how he defeated his primary opponents, how he was outspent, he had a hostile media, and he defeated the Democratic machine, and Kamala Harris. It starts on January 6th. It ends pretty much now in May of 2006. What's the title about? Donald Trump is not a revolutionary. He's not a revisionist.

He's a counter-revolutionary. This time around, he is not addressing just the symptoms of the progressive project of the last 50 years. He's talking about the causes, not just an open border, but how to stop illegal immigration entirely. Not just crime, but sending the National Guard in to make sure cities are shut. safe, not just an Iranian nuclear threat, but ending that threat that seven other presidents had identified but did not act on, not just addressing the transgender issue or the Green New Deal and all of those issues that were so dear to the Democratic Party, but ending them, defunding NPR and PBS.

So it is a counter-revolution to unwind and to roll back the entire president. progressive project of the last 50 years. I think you're going to like it. It's pretty interesting. It chronicles the greatest political comeback in our recent political history. Thank you very much. I'm Victor Davis-Henson for The Daily Signal. Welcome back to the Midterm Report.

We have with us the Daily Signals state correspondence team. Well, some of them were now active in five states. We're very excited to cover not only what's happening in the state capitals, but all of the political races in these five states. And today we have representatives from Virginia, Ohio, and Texas. We'll make sure we get the other correspondence on in a future episode of the midterm report. But it's my pleasure to introduce Joe Thomas from Virginia, Emily McElagheros from Texas, and Rebecca Downs from Ohio. Thanks to the three of you for being with us today. You have done some really groundbreaking, solid original reporting on the campaigns and elections that are playing out in the states. And I want to start with you, Joe, because, you know, personal privilege here. I live in Virginia, and I'm paying close attention to what's going on in the Commonwealth. I've already voted, actually. I voted last Friday when the polls open. Virginia is one of the earliest states to open.

the polls. And Joe, you've written a couple stories for us about the ballot measures, which seemed to be getting a lot of attention, not only from the Catholic bishops in Virginia, but some of the other groups that are really concerned about the implications for life, marriage, felons, voting, and thank you for bringing us up to speed on that. In fact, in our previous interview with Nick Fratus, the former delegate, he talked about some of the consequences, long-term consequences of what those amendments might mean. So, Joe, bring our listeners and viewers up to speed on those amendments before we get into some of the other races that are on the Virginia ballot this year.

Well, I want to thank you for putting the pressure on me. Anyone who has to follow Nick Freitas is going to fall far short of the mark there, and Nick would be the first one to tell you that. So the most important thing I think right now going on towards the mid-term, terms, especially as it relates to these ballot referendum, is the deceptive language that's being used in the ballots. This was decided by the General Assembly. They are allowed to write the text. It was pushed through. Republicans not having a majority in either house. They had no say in how the wording was done. It is incredibly deceptive. We have a piece up.

from last week at Daily Signal on the Virginia page. I sat down with Winsome Sears in which she very clearly asked the first question, which is number one, what do these ballot referendums? What question do they answer? Are we having abortions in Virginia? Yes. Are we having same-sex marriage in Virginia? Yes. So why do we have these referendums if not to turn anyone who objects to participating in them into a marked criminal. And that's been the biggest, I think, driver and surprise that Virginians have found, Rob, in these ballot referendums, is that when they look at what the code says, and it starts to talk about things that you could get in trouble for if you don't participate,

if you don't take part in, if you don't help somebody get an abortion, whether their parents approve or not. If you stop and ask a parent, if you're a doctor that says, hold on a second here, you've changed your mind and we're only five minutes away from birth. I'm not comfortable doing this. You can actually be arrested and punished for noncompliance with these ballot referendums. The second part is the fact that you can start setting the precedence of noncompliance being a criminal behavior. So there's a deeper subtext that if we allow this precedent to go, what other things we've heard

people talk about turning home housing into a right? Well, if I don't rent you my basement, am I not complying? If I don't hire somebody, am I not complying? And then am I now going to wind up being targeted for law enforcement? So those are the two things. I'm not sure they've rung the bell yet. And this is where, you know, bless the bishop for his efforts, the problem that the conservative side of Virginia faces is the idea that it's strictly about abortion, about gay rights, about felons getting their votes, their voting rights back. It's not about that. It's deeper than that because this is designed to make conservatives say,

I really don't want to get into that conversation. And that's the third rail of these three ballot referendums is that conservatives will disengage, not go out and vote no, because they think they don't want to be against, you know, gay marriage, same-sex unions, abortion. That's not what any of these are about. And I would caution people from thinking about that. But that's where it's very important to look into the nerdy details of these ballot. referendums because there's so much more going on here than meets the eye. Thank you for that analysis, Joe.

And Rebecca, I'll turn to you next because you not in the too distant past, Ohio had its own ballot referendum. And as we know, a lot of people said, these are put on the ballot by Democrats to juice turnout. That is one of the motivating factors, if they didn't have enough motivation already to get out and vote. Obviously, you've been tracking two other races. that are really catching people's eye in Ohio,

both for governor and Senate. What can you tell us about the mood in Ohio? Some of the stories that you've been tracking there as these two key races really come down to the finish line here over the course of the next month or so. Sure. So I was nodding along when Joe was speaking, great insight. Ohio had a 23 ballot initiative on abortion that passed.

current Secretary of State Frank LaRose has warned and in the aftermath following that said it was a lot of out of state pro-abortion forces kind of putting the thumb on the scale. We also have one coming up in 2027.

In Ohio it seems to be in an off-election year when people don't really turn out except they're really motivated on the left. This one is also to do with same-sex marriage but also I think like trans.

issues. So that will be interesting to cover next year. But for this year on the ballot, they actually did say they gave us a statement, equality Ohio, I believe was the group, that said they decided to wait until 2027 because we have so many races this year in Ohio. And that includes the governor's race and the U.S. Senate race, which is actually a special election, right? Because John Houston, who it seems has served every role you can in Ohio, he was lieutenant governor, he was secretary of state, Senate president. and I believe he was appointed by current governor Mike DeWine to fill now vice president J.D. Vance's seat. So Ohio, some cool Ohio trivia. We've got a lot of Senate races coming up

because the winner of this race will have to run again in 2028. So the both races for the most part, I'll get to that caveat in a moment, are considered toss-ups. I believe that that is accurate. we are in a midterm year in a year that might historically not look great for Republicans, right? Because President Donald Trump is in office, he's a Republican. So, and I think John Hustid, right, he's sort of the incumbent, but not really. And he's running against former Democrat Senator Sherrod Brown. Sherrod Brown was defeated in 2024 by about 3.6 points when Donald Trump won the state by about 11 points. So Bernie Moreno, who's our current senator, he's a very capable candidate, right?

I don't want to undermine that at all. But I think it helped that he rode Donald Trump's coattails, you know. So now we might be doing the opposite effect. I think that John Houston, I don't want to fear monger and say, oh, he's at a risk. He's at risk. But just the nature of where the country is, I do think it's a toss-up race. It's going to be one to watch for sure. Now, the governor's race for the most part.

it's an open race, right, is also a toss-up. That's between Vivek Ramaswami, right, who ran for president in 2024 and Dr. Amy Acton, she's the Democrat. She was Mike DeWine's, she was still a Democrat then, but she was like the health director that handled COVID. And that has come back to bite her in a lot of ways, the handling of COVID. Now, Vote Hub just last night, so this is very timely. This was Wednesday night.

They changed the nature of the race. to tilt Democrat. I would not quite agree with that. I also think that leads to, okay, is Ohio a red state, right? I think we, I think it's safe to say we are a red state, but it's very recent and it's very fresh. And when a midterm comes along, that might not look so great for Republicans, because that just, you know, it's a midterm year and Trump's the Republican president in office. I don't think, now is that necessarily going to mean, oh my gosh, Ohio's no longer a red state, what happened? I think it speaks to Ohio is a purple state in a lot of ways. And especially with the midterm, it's not a presidential year, right? Ohio could be a red state in a presidential

year and then we'll see how the midterms go. So I think that speaks to Ohio being, okay, are we a red state still? Are we a bit of a purple state? How bright is the red? I think I've seen, I wrote about that New York Times article that came out, gosh, a few weeks ago now, saying, oh, Ohio's going to lose its red state status. It's now a purple state again. Well, did we ever really, you know, lose that status? And I think you could say that about Virginia, too, being a purple versus blue state as well. Sure.

I mean, up until last year, Governor Yonkin was capability leading the state. And Joe will come back to you because I do want to get your perspective on Governor Spanberger and certainly how she has led that state. But let's go to first to Emily, because Emily, you're also covering a couple of statewide races, both for governor and U.S. Senate. And just this week, you had a, you have been following a big story about Democrat Senate Canada, James Talarico, and some new undercover video that came out about a pastor that he has called a mentor of his. And these have been questions that have dogged him throughout the campaign about what his true beliefs are, because he certainly,

maybe much to make it analogous with Spanberger campaigned as a certain type of Democrat when a lot of people think that if he's in office, he will act quite differently. So tell us not only about that current story, but kind of the state of the races in Texas. Yeah, so right now we're seeing a huge divide, mainly in, I wouldn't say some conservatives are actually going against Paxton currently. So there are some insights going around. Now, of course, Tala Rico is leading in the polls by like one point. But as I've always said, I don't really trust polls because most of the time these polls are done in these big cities that are filled with liberals.

They're not actually going up to the rural communities where you're going to find all the other conservatives around the state. So right now, Tala Rico is currently leading. I believe the last I saw, it was 47% to 46%. So neck and neck, it's a talk. boss up. It could go either way. I think from what we saw last time with Beto versus Ted Cruz, though, a lot of people were saying, Beto has a chance. He's going to win. Look at the polls. He's going to win. And then he didn't. So I think really right now with the Paxton and Tala Rico race, I don't really think there's much that we should worry about with that.

I think there are some things we should worry about. But I think right now, Tala Rico is really doing Paxton a favor with everything already coming out right now. I mean, him calling God, non-binary, all this other stuff, him having a pastor mentor that literally had heresy to say undercover on this video that the blaze released. I mean, there's so much that's going on in that race that it's like, I really don't think anyone should be that worried about it, even though there's a lot. The Democrats do, especially down in Texas, there's actually something that came out from Courier, Texas. They were just down in Austin and they were talking to Gina Hinojosa and then Harris County Democrats. chair who said that Texas is not a red state. It's a non-voting state. Not true. It is a very red state. A lot of people just don't vote. That is a true thing. A lot of people in Texas, there's a lot of

people. I mean, I can't remember exactly how many millions, but it's growing every single day, like the suburbs and everything else. It's growing. So she's right on the point that some people just don't vote because some people just, they don't care or they don't think that their vote matters necessarily, but I'm not going to sit there and say that this is not a red state. It is very much still a red state. I just think the Democrats are being extremely loud right now. Joe, let's come back to you. Thank you for that, Emily. I wanted to ask you a couple of things. Number one, as somebody who saw the campaign ads on television throughout the course of 2025 when Virginia had an off cycle election, which certainly Governor Spanberger,

was victorious and she campaigned as a moderate and she's got governed anything but that. She has has pivoted hard to the left on a whole host of issues. And I'm wondering if, if given the unique circumstances in Virginia and some of the things that voters there are experiencing after a year of watching her, her governor, govern, is that maybe an opportunity for Republicans in Virginia to perform a little bit differently maybe than than Republicans nationwide, or is that not going to have as big of an effect? And then secondarily, obviously, Virginia was in the news a lot because of redistricting and Republicans ultimately prevailed there in terms of having a chance to maintain some of those seats that the Democrats were going to

completely wipe out. So what are the, what's the prospects kind of of the six, five congressional split and some of the other factors that you're paying attention to? Well, the first thing you're going to notice is there is a decided lack of Democrats campaigning with Governor Spanberger. Mark Warner, Tom Perriello, Beth Macy, all of these folks all over the place, no Abigail Spanberger. She has been left out perhaps intentionally. I don't know if it's her call or not, but her absence on the campaign trail has been noticeable. Secondly, to Emily's point on voter turnout, we're talking about an election in Virginia, which,

if we're incredibly lucky, is going to reach 50%. Part of it is weariness. You mentioned we had our redistricting vote in December. Then we had the court battle over that, but then the primaries for these offices were right after that. And now we're voting already again for the actual general election. People are tired. So this plays into the progressives hand because if your turnout is 45% in a congressional district, do the math. You don't have to fool all the people all of the time, just 20% of them, and you can call yourself a victor. And that's going to be the bigger problem for Republicans because they're having a tough time convincing the national party that we have enough juice to warrant some of that big bank roll that the RNC says that they have.

The other part of it is the Republicans in Virginia are energized from the catfishing they got, from Governor Spanberger, from the gun attacks, from the abortion, from her turnaround, even on the redistricting. She said as a congresswoman that she would oppose this, partisan gerrymandering and went right out and endorsed it as soon as we started voting on it in Virginia. So it is going to backfire in terms of motivated Republicans, where they were counting on tired Republicans, Trump weariness, gas prices, the war in Iran. I don't see it. The candidates have been doing a good job. I'm hearing some rumblings that President Trump might do a rally for Rob Whitman or perhaps try to do a joint rally down in the Norfolk area because Norfolk is really

going to be the key, the Hampton Roads, Norfolk area, because that's the area that made Glenn Yonkin, Winsom Sears and Jason Miaris our executive branch. They were all from that area. They all had connection there and that changed and that flipped. If there's an area of Virginia, I forget what county in Ohio that they said was the key county in the 2000 election of George W. Bush. But I remember they went on TV and said, oh, it's this one county. If we can win this one county in Ohio, we'll win the whole thing. Anyway, maybe it was a Florida one. But in Virginia, it's the Hampton Roads area.

If President Trump comes down there, gets a base full of, you know, Air Force and Navy pilots out there and fills the place and does a rally for Rob Whitman and Jen Kiggins, we might actually see a survival of the 6-5 split. I don't think we're going to flip it the other way just this time around, but it could hold that 6-5 split. Well, with the House so narrowly divided, obviously there will be a lot of eyes on Virginia just to see if any of those seats are able to be salvaged. They are obviously a few toss-ups in the mix,

even though Republicans have managed to hold the map steady. Rebecca, Joe mentioned a whole host of issues there, whole host of policy issues that are tough of mind for a lot of voters across the country. You've been out on the campaign trail. You've been at events with Vice President Vance from Ohio. what are you hearing from voters? What are the issues that have surprised you that may not get our attention here in Washington, D.C.,

but are resonating with people back in your home? Sure. So there has been so much attention, but it really is going on in Ohio with data centers. And we've talked a lot about it. Joe's, of course, written about it because, and I imagine Emily has two, because I think our three states slash commonwealths, we have a lot of data centers. Virginia may have the most.

I think Virginia has the most. But there's a lot of misunderstanding about data centers, which is unfortunate because the Chinese are laughing at us. In that regard, as how I look at it, you know, are they God's gift of creation? Maybe not. Maybe we don't have to look at it that way. And of course, there are some concerns with AI,

as Pope Leo has spoken to from that perspective. But I think all the outrage over data centers is woefully misunderstood. Now, where that comes into play in Ohio is that Sherrod Brown has made a lot of hay at a John Houston's connections to data centers. There were ads, I believe it was end of July, early August that really resonated. That actually led to a memo in August from the NRC warning about, okay, if this thing go south for us in Ohio, it might not just be Ohio and it might not just be this year where

data centers are going to have that effect. So it is to do with data centers. Now the ad was playing a quote from a Cleveland.com reporter in previous weeks about how John Cusid is the face of data centers. And when that is negative for voters, that can be a big deal. So data centers, I think, are definitely a factor. Now, John Houston has said both his campaign has said to me and John Houston said from the Senate floor last week, it's a local decision. And I think that's a great way of looking at anything, but on data centers especially. And where this became relevant is I was away last week, but I did get a piece up on Monday night about how John Houston had a bill. It passed the house. Well, you know, the House is sponsors.

passed the House 4-17-3, the three Democrats who voted against our radical leftist squad members. You know, what a shock we wouldn't get them. And it was to urge data centers to pay their own way rather than offset that cost on the ratepayers. So everybody wins. But Senator Martin Heinrich last week objected to it on unanimous consent and then what do you know, tried to bring about his own bill and Bernie Moreno or other Ohio senator rejected it, in part, because he said, look, John Houston's bill already passed the House. We could have gotten this done today and helped the rate payers out. Now, my thinking, and my headline mentioned, this is an election year employ. They were not going to give John Houston, who was in a potentially very tight

race. They were not going to give him an election win, you know, an election year win. So I think it's, you know, what a shock. It's politics. But I think it's definitely politics. And I think data centers are going to be what plays a role. I also think, you know, a legal immigration to a lesser extent was a big deal in 2024 for good for good reason but ohio drivers keep getting killed on the road and if that weren't bad enough there by people who don't who have drivers license from other states that are willing to grant those to those who may not be able to prove their legal status so john mused and burney marino they said we've had enough of that we wrote our letters we're now going to they introduce legislation that says if you're one of those states it's 19

states, including Virginia, plus D.C., so like 20 jurisdictions, you're going to have your funds withheld, and we're going to redistribute them to other states that don't go that route. Well, those are some important issues to closely track. And Emily, I'll toss it to you. Same type of question. What are you hearing? I think I'm mostly interested in what conservatives are concerned about. And as we've been talking, we recognize that Democrats may hold the.

excitement or enthusiasm advantage heading into election day. But there are some issues in Texas, whether it be data centers or you've covered the Islamification of some parts of Texas. Are those things resonating in a way that you think will drive turnout among the conservative base that might help Governor Abbott or Senate candidate Ken Paxton? Yeah, I think especially the Islamification question going on in Texas. So there was a recent report that in the last two years, there have been 48 to 50 mosques that have been built up and DFW alone. So that is a lot.

Not only that, I have covered extensively the McKinney City Council recall, which is it all started over the city council not listening to, you know, the voices of residents saying, hey, we don't want this. This is not a good thing to put, you know, in this busy, because the street that it's going to be sitting on is a very busy street. next to a high school, which has like thousands of children going there every single day. And then it's also near a bunch of businesses. So this mosque is going to be relocated to this huge five-acre spot that has been, by the way, I've lived in McKinney most of my life. It's never been used. It's always been used as farmland.

So it's interesting that they're now all of a sudden bringing this mosque over here. But the Islamification is huge over here, especially after Chip Roy, he sent a letter about the mosque being built near Camp Bullis. I mean, that's a huge red flag for a lot of conservatives over here, especially because it's not even just Islamification. It's also the H-1Bs. So in Texas, we are the second largest state for H-1Bs.

So that there's like, I think the last record of it was about 400,000 people here on H-1Bs having jobs. But sometimes it's not even them taking jobs. It's them coming over here on fraudulent reasoning and then, you know, taking up space. in these suburbs. So I think that's definitely going to be something that is going to draw some people out. It's already done that over here in Collin County. I mean, McKinney, they just got a word that they have 6,500 signatures already for the recall. They only needed 5,805, I think, was the amount that they needed.

So they've already exceeded. A lot of people are fed up right now with, you know, their politicians, whether it be local or countywide or statewide or statewide. they are upset that they are not listening to their concerns. So I think that's definitely going to be a motivator for a lot of people, the Islamification one for sure. Data centers have already been a huge one for rural communities because of water usage. I mean, down in Corpus Christi, they're already almost out of water emergency.

I've been covering that for a little bit, but they are almost out of water emergency where they have no more water to use, which is a huge deal for them. But it's also the farmers. They're not going to have all those resources because these data centers are going to be taking their resources. So there's a lot of different factors going on in Texas. I would say the main three, H-1Bs, which Governor Abbott is trying to hone in right now.

He is trying to get it under control. And then Islamification, it's a huge issue. And then data centers, yeah. Well, thank you for that. Joe Thomas, you think you put data centers on my radar long before they become such a popular topic nationwide. I'll give you the last word on this topic because you've been tracking it for quite some time. Well, and it's interesting because all three of our states play a different role in the long game of the Democratic Party. Virginia, given its proximity to a major media market like Washington, D.C., becomes their example.

So this is why we are being targeted with these constitutional amendments, because if you can pass them in purple Virginia, we just had a Republican governor, you can export them Johnny Bar the door in a place like New York. Jersey or Colorado or anything like that. The same goes for, as Rebecca was saying, Ohio, just recently, redness. And by the way, it was Hamilton County, Ohio that Carl Roves said, if we win Hamilton County, we're going to win the country. And Emily, Texas is such, it's like the 20-point buck. They want to nail that trophy deer and put it on their world. We flipped Texas.

you know, it would be like Republicans winning in California. But the data center specifically, and I watched this story go from some websites, some blogs, to some mainstream news outlets like The New York Post. And most recently, about two weeks ago, the New York Times finally admitted that the Chinese Communist Party is paying for a lot of the activism anti- data centers. A lot of the, oh, the boogie, boogie man, they're using up all the water, they're making your electric bills go up. A lot of that has been tracked back to Chinese spending, much in the way the Soviet Union spent a lot of money in the anti-war movement in the 60s.

And it's because China wants the data centers. And there's an interesting dynamic because you're going to get the security Republicans and the ecological Democrats. I was talking to Mark Morano from the Climate Depot just the other day. He said he was up in New York for Climate Week. The climate change zealots are in a panic mode because they've lost the agenda. All the all the money from climate change has moved to AI and they're trying to rebrand themselves there. It's it is this idea that scary surveillance state is going to drive conservatives to support the issue, and the green movement is going to come from the left and support this. So they're looking at this Baptist and Bootleggers coalition of right and left if they

play it right, and that's where they've been doing this. My stand, and it's my analysis only, I want data centers where the Fourth Amendment and the Third Amendment exist. And if you, everyone knows the Fourth Amendment. Third Amendment is the one that I think is most appropriate to the data centers in the surveillance because we if they are caught surveilling, same thing with flock cameras. If they are surveilling illicitly American citizens, we can go to the Supreme Court. We can go to our courts because we have the Fourth Amendment. If they're doing it in China, we have no recourse. What are we going to go to the Hague? It's not going to happen. So we need to keep the data centers in the United States. And when President Trump said that,

You know, there have been very few moments when President Trump gets a hurrah out of me. I love him. I love what he stood for. Sometimes I wish he would say it different. But when he started talking about America needs to hold on to these data centers, he was absolutely 100% right. And China wants them desperately. Right now, 70% of the world's Internet's traffic goes through the Commonwealth of Virginia.

We have one major trunk line that comes in in Arlington, not far from where you are, Rob. And then we have another one coming in from Africa in the Hampton Roads area. That's why we have so many data centers here because they want to sit on these trunk lines of internet traffic. And it's not going to go away. It's not going to change. I know West Virginia has said we'll gladly take the data centers. And a lot of people in Virginia would be fine with that. but we have to get this, and the finest point I can make, and I heard it in Rebecca and

Emily's statements, all politics are local, whether it's mosques in a small town in Texas, outside of Dallas, or it is the behavior of a priest endorsing a candidate in Ohio. These are all local issues that these national candidates have to tap into because that's where the motivation is going to be. And if they do it right, they are going to win, they'll hold on to the House and they'll probably grow their majority in the Senate. Fair point, Joe. Thank you. Thank you for that. And always, thank you for reminding us about those constitutional principles. I think that it's so important for conservatives, particularly in all of the distractions happening in the world that they come back to that sound foundation, which we all believe in.

Okay, let's do a quick lightning round before we wrap up. And I'll put a plug in. The Daily Signal has a state email newsletter for all five of the states, and once a week you can get updates on all of the stories that Joe, Rebecca, and Emily, and our other state correspondents are doing. We'll be sure to leave a link in the show notes so you can sign up if you're from one of those states or just curious to learn about what's happening in Virginia, Ohio, or Texas. So, Rebecca, let's start with you. Just briefly, tell us, you know, in the 40-some days we have left before the 11th. election day, and obviously people in some states are already starting to vote. Yeah. What are the stories that you'll be following for the Daily Signal?

What can they expect in the weeks to come? Yeah, so these are specific races. I'll be covering Ohio's ninth between Marcy Capter and Derek Marin. That's actually a rematch. We'll see if redistricting saves the Republicans. I think that I personally think that race could go either way. I would not surprise me, even if now an R plus 11 district with redistricting, it's Marcy Capter hangs on. That woman has been in office not long, just longer than I've been

alive, but longer than her opponent's been alive and longer than J.D. Vance has been alive. So she's held on for that long. Of course, the Senate and gubernatorial races, a lot of how illegal immigration affects Ohio, even in a red state like Ohio. It really shows you the connection between other states. And then, for instance, the story I have coming up is voter registration. right? Republican or the Republican Secretary of State just secured a win from the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals about on yeah, you have to be able to prove that you're a citizen to vote when you go in person at the BMV. Imagine that. So I like to think of it as Ohio having its own Save America Act. There you go. Especially, yep, especially because on the Save America Act,

the Vake Ramoswami, right? He proposed in May. He wants a constitutional or a state constitutional amendment. It's now called issue three that is going to put voter ID in the state constitution because Virginia, right? Joe, I'm sure you know. They used to have voter ID and then Democrats in control of that legislature there. And Governor Democratic governor, Ralph Northam, yeah, they nixed it. So they want that in the state constitution. And that's even something that the Democratic candidate in the Act and support.

So I think issue three is going to might give Ohio our own Save America Act. I think that's going to be a big thing to watch. Thanks for following those ballot measures in Ohio. You're welcome. Emily, what stories are you keeping an eye on in the weeks to come? So I have been following Telerico and Paxson because that is a huge one for everyone around here. Everyone's just looking and I'm seeing signs up everywhere around, you know, the state of who they're going to be supporting. I've been seeing bumper stickers.

So it's like a huge thing for everybody because if Democrats get the seat, that's a huge win for them. And this is a, that would be a huge loss on Republicans part. Some of the other races I've been watching are the congressional races down in South Texas. Because of the redistricting that happened in the state legislature, they redistricted some of those areas where it could lean more Republican. However, what we're seeing right now is that one of them is actually not leaning Republican at all. It's actually switched far Democrat. I think it's Henry Culler's district is the one that he is now, like at first he was losing in the polls. Now all of a sudden it's like skyrocketed and he's like 11 points ahead.

And it's just it's insane. So those are some of the ones that I'm going to mainly be watching. And then of course my favorite beat is the Islamification of Texas. And there is a lot to come out about this. There's a lot more to investigate. It's not going away. It's going to be here for a while. especially if our local communities, our local city councils, school boards, all of this stuff,

continue to let it come in and infiltrate the cities. So I think that's going to be my main things that I'm looking into. Yeah. Thank you, Emily. And Joe, we'll give you the last word. Not only do you contribute to the Daily Signal, but you have your own radio show. So I'd be remiss if I didn't give you an opportunity to plug the broadcast side of Joe Thomas World as well. Well, you know, Talk Media Network has been incredibly generous. It's been a wonderful year, my association, Rob, you reaching out and adding us to the team at Daily Signal and Talk Media Network. Both Rebecca and Emily have been wonderful contributors and guests. And sometimes I feel like texting you and emailing you at 3 o'clock in the morning when I'm prepping out the day's show.

Just be grateful. I haven't done that yet. Things we're watching, and I'm going to go out on a limb here, one of the main things we're going to be, covering is two of the major polling operations, and one of the big thumb on the scale groups is the Larry Sabato Institute for getting Larry Sabado mentioned on the news, also known as the UVA Center for Politics. They and the Cook Report are trying to lean pretty heavily on showing the world that they can influence these elections. There's going to be that. But here's the one that I'm going to throw in here is the Virginia Senate race. Nobody's talking about it. Very few

people are even mentioning it. Mark Warner has canceled two debates, one hosted by AARP and the other hosted by the League of Women Voters, not exactly hair-flaming conservative outlets, but he has bailed on both of their regularly scheduled debates with Bert Mississawa. And I think I know why, because when Mark Warner has run in a plain midterm race, he only won by 18,000 votes. That's like 1,000, maybe 1100 votes each congressional district. That's a very thin majority. He's been out on a limb.

He's been the craziest blogger of left-wing insanity. It's like he's trying to out-A-O-C-A-O-C, and it's not playing well because an old tech billionaire complaining about data centers is getting people's attention. So be careful of discounting Bert Misasawa in the Senate races. I'm just putting that in the world because when Mark Warner doesn't have a lot of coattails to ride on, Mark struggles a little bit to be a big winner in Virginia. So those are the two I'm going to be, you know, the keys, and obviously we're going to keep watching for any movement in these constitutional amendments. Big money. It's $2.8 million in the pro-abortion side, $444,000 for the

vote-no side of that, just that one referendum. There's big money coming in from all over the country for these referendums. So it'll be interesting to see if, Just like constitutional redistricting, the conservative voice can survive being buried under a pile of cash. Well, thank you for that, Joe. I will pay closer attention to that U.S. Senate race. Appreciate you putting it on all of our radar. Thanks to the three of you, again, we will make sure that we have links to their social media handles in the show notes. You can follow more closely the work that they're doing in the weeks to come.

We appreciate your contributions to the state news network and for joining the midterm report today. So I hope you all have a great rest of the week and we'll talk to you again soon. Thanks so much. Thanks.