Up First from NPR - Four Big Races To Watch, Partial SNAP Funding, Famine In Sudan

Episode Date: November 4, 2025

Voters in New York, Virginia and New Jersey choose new leaders today, and a redistricting vote in California could reshape the balance of power in Congress. The Trump administration says it will restart SNAP benefits, but only partially, leaving millions of families uncertain about how they’ll eat this month. And aid groups warn of a deepening crisis in Sudan after a paramilitary force accused of genocide seized the last major city in Darfur, killing thousands of people and trapping many more without food or water.Want more comprehensive analysis of the most important news of the day, plus a little fun? Subscribe to the Up First newsletter.Today’s episode of Up First was edited by Ben Swasey, Catherine Laidlaw, Kate Bartlett, Mohamad ElBardicy and Alice Woelfle.It was produced by Ziad Buchh, Nia Dumas and Christopher ThomasWe get engineering support from Stacey Abbott. And our technical director is Carleigh Strange.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Several elections come today. A congressional redistricting vote in California could give Democrats an edge. And voters in Virginia, New Jersey, and New York City will choose new leaders. We'll tell you the big races to watch and why they matter. I'm Steven Skipe with Michelle Martin, and this is up first from NPR News. The White House says supplemental nutrition benefits will restart, but only partially. What does that mean for families who rely on the aid? Single mom in Phoenix says her son now depends on school meals.

He's basically going to school to eat breakfast and a lunch. And famine is spreading in Sudan. A group say hundreds of thousands of people are trapped without food or water after a paramilitary force accused of genocide seized the last major city in Darfur. Say with us we'll give you news you need to start your day. This message comes from Wise, the app for using money. around the globe. When you manage your money with Wise, you'll always get the mid-market exchange rate with no hidden fees. Join millions of customers and visit Wise.com. T's and C's Apply. Voting ends today in a handful of high-profile elections, including for mayor of New York City and for governor in New Jersey and Virginia.

It's a tradition to watch those three elections. They always come in the first year of a presidency and people look for clues to what voters are thinking. This year, there's an extra big election to, watch, a ballot measure in California that could influence who captures Congress next year. Here to talk us through these races is NPR political correspondent Ashley Lopez. Ashley, good morning. Good morning. Let's start in California. It's a one-issue election, kind of unusual. Yeah, kind of. It's a one ballot measure on the ballot asking voters to allow state lawmakers to redraw their congressional map ahead of the 2026 election. California has an independent redistricting commission, which is something voters approved about 15 years ago. If passed, this measure would allow Democrats in the state to bypass that commission so that they can do a partisan

gerrymander. That means they would draw up to five more seats that their party is favored to win in the midterms. But you can't think about California in isolation here because it's part of a national redistricting fight between Democrats and Republicans in a number of states. So in this case, this is Democrats in California responding to Republicans in Texas. That's right. And Democrats went as far as saying that in the ballot language of this measure. Texas redrew its map at the request of President Trump and created five more favorable seats for Republicans in the state, and California basically wants to offset that edge that Trump wants. And this measure looks like it's likely to pass. I was actually in Southern California last week, and many Democratic voters told me they have

mixed feelings about bypassing the Independent Redistricting Commission and allowing gerrymandering, but they think it's more important to fight back against Trump and Republicans, and this is one way they can. All right, let's move to the other coast to New York City. What should we know about the mayoral race there? Right. So the frontrunner for that race is Zora Mamdani, who is 34 years old, and he's a member of the New York State Assembly. He won the Democratic primary this summer, which surprised a lot of folks because he was relatively unknown when he entered the race, and he beat a former governor in that primary contest, Andrew Cuomo. Cuomo decided to stay in the race by running as an independent. In the last days of the campaign, Cuomo has gotten

some big endorsements, including the presidents. But this hasn't been an easy fight for him. Mamdani has a very energetic grassroots campaign that has engaged a lot of young voters in the city, especially on affordability issues. Also, interesting. that the president bypassed the Republican in the race to go to Cuomo as an independent. Okay, so what should we keep an eye on when it comes to the gubernatorial races in New Jersey and Virginia? Yeah, so Democrats are out of power in Washington, obviously, but governorships have been this area of government where they've been able to somewhat push back against the Trump

administration. So the stakes of these races are particularly high for Democrats. In Virginia, Democrats have a decent shot. Abigail Spanberger, a former member of Congress is polling ahead in that race against Republican Lieutenant Governor Winsome, Earl Sears. And there's a history of the party and power in the White House typically losing the race for governor in Virginia. And what about New Jersey? Yeah, I mean, that race might be a little tougher for the Democratic Party.

Besides the polling being close, history is not on the party side like it is in Virginia. Voters have not elected the same party for governor for three terms in a row since the 60s. So Congresswoman Mikey Sherrill is seeking to defy that trend against Republican Jack Chittorelli. So what, if anything about tonight will you be looking for as a possible clue to the midterm elections next year? Well, I'm going to be looking at how Democrats perform in these races. Yes, they're favored to win a lot of them, but there is a big difference among these candidates. Mamdani and Spanberger, for example, represent very different parts of the Democratic coalition. And results could tell us something about how voters are responding to different kinds of candidates and messaging as the party looks to next year. That is NPR's Ashley Lopez. Ashley, thank you.

Yeah, thank you. The Trump administration says it will restart SNAP food benefits for November. These will only be partial payments for the supplemental nutrition, and it may take a while to get the money out. And P.S. Jennifer Ludden is here to tell us more. Good morning, Jennifer. Good morning. So a federal judge in Rhode Island ordered the administration to pay for SNAP after the benefits ran out during this government shutdown. Why won't they pay the full amount that people are eligible for? Because they're tapping a contingency fund. that has about $4.5 billion, and that's only half the amount of SNAP benefits people get each month. So the administration says it will pay people 50% of their benefit. Also, this is why it's

going to take longer for people to get the money. States administer SNAP, and they're going to have to reprogram their systems to issue these partial payments. It's a pretty complicated process. And in a court filing Monday an Agriculture Department official noted that some state processing systems or decades old. He estimated it could take some places, weeks, if not months, for SNAP recipients to get their November benefits. States, cities, some nonprofits, all suit over cutting off SNAP benefits. They filed lawsuits in Rhode Island and Massachusetts. Any reaction from these litigants? Yes. You know, they are glad the administration will pay people something, even if it's what one critic called the bare minimum. But they say it's not enough, especially since, as they point out,

Two federal judges also said the administration could legally tap a much bigger pot of money and that would allow full-snap payments with plenty left over. Now, the administration chose not to do it in a court filing an Agriculture Department official again questioned the legality of using that extra money and argued that shifting it could hurt child nutrition programs. This is the country's largest anti-hunger program. So where does this leave the millions of people who are still, for now, missing that monthly food benefit? It leaves a lot of people very worried. Some are very fearful. NPR spoke with Shalise Hooks. She is a widow in Phoenix. She's unemployed and has a 15-year-old son.

You know, and it's hard because he's in high school and when he comes home, he's hungry. That's okay, Mama. No, it's not okay. So he's basically going to school to eat breakfast and a lunch. You know, Hook says she's even had these desperate thoughts of stealing meat, you know, milk, cereal. for her son. But obviously she does not want to do that, she says. Plus, what if she ended up in jail? He was on his own. So, of course, food banks are stepping up. We have cities in some states trying to fill this gap. Local officials just worry about a ripple effect the longer this goes on. You know, could people face eviction if they can't pay rent or health problems if they're not eating well? And one more thing to note, the administration says because it's using up this contingency fund, there would be no money to sign up any new people for SNAP in November. And this sort of invites the question here, what happens with SNAP if the shutdown last past November? Well, if the Trump administration still declined to shift other money, we could be right back to people getting zero benefits and maybe right back in the courts. And one other point, Michelle, you know, Republicans and President Trump have long wanted to shrink the SNAP food program. And people might remember this summer, Republicans in Congress did pass the biggest cuts, budget cuts, to this program in its history.

They center around expanding work requirements and a number of other measures. And so whenever we get through this shutdown, those cuts are going to be playing out. And they are projected to push about 2.4 million people off of SNAP over the next decade. That is NPR's Jennifer Luton. Jennifer, thank you. Thank you. A famine in Sudan has spread. That is, according to an organization that monitors hunger around the world, the famine is one effect of a war.

In recent days, an armed group that's battling the government captured a city called Al Thasher in the Darfur region. The rapid support forces, as they are called, allegedly moved into the city, killed many people and put the rest in danger. And Pierre's Emmanuel Lachin Woto has been covering this story. Emmanuel, welcome back. Good morning. Okay, first, what does the finding by this outside group suggest about the scale of the suffering here? Well, what we know is that about 375,000 more people are suffering famine and many of those people are in Duff War

and that's the area controlled by the rapid support forces or the RSF that's the group at war with the government and they include people in Afashir, the city Michelle mentioned and the catastrophic situation there really isn't a surprise it was under siege by the RSF for a year and a half and about 250,000 people living there were almost completely cut off from food and medical supplies and community kitchens that were really a lifeline providing food funded by donations,

they were bombed. People have been forced to eat, animal feed, even hides. Wow. So what more can you say, then, about these hundreds of thousands of people with very little eat? Well, there's been a communications blackout, so it's very difficult to get a detailed picture of events. But information that has trickled out is really shocking. Only about 70,000 people have fled, according to the UN, and less than 10,000 of them are actually accounted for. Most of those who've managed to escape have fled to a remote mountainous town, about 25 miles away called Tawila. The majority of them are women.

And organizations that have been supporting them, they say several have witnessed their children, their husbands, members of their family, gunned down and tortured. The reports of people being asked what ethnic group they are and then killed. And descriptions of hundreds of people at a time, mostly men rounded up and executed. Okay, so the people accused of doing all of this, the actors. the group that took over the city, the rapid support forces. They're this group that was under the auspices of the government, then turned against the government. They're allegedly supported by the United Arab Emirates, which is a big foreign policy player throughout the region. What are they saying about these accusations against them? Well, firstly, the RSF, they've denied

targeting civilians. But what we've repeatedly seen during the war is that these abuses and atrocities really are systemic and part and parcel of how they've operated. The UN says they're committing a genocide in Darfur again against African ethnic groups, and that's 20 years after the first Darfur genocide. And really this wave of violence is an extension of that. And then, as you've mentioned, there's the UAE, and they're a close ally of the US who are facing growing attention for their role in this war. A few days ago, Anwar Gargash, a senior Emirati official,

he commented on the situation in Al-Fashir. Right now, as we condemn the atrocities in Al-Fashir, and they deserve condemnation, and they deserve also for us to condemn every other also atrocity in Sudan. And really he spoke about it in humanitarian terms, talking about the need for more aid and the need for a ceasefire,

but he didn't address widespread allegations that the UAE are arming the RSF. I'm just thinking about everything you've told me here, Emmanuel, and a phrase that is sticking with me is genocide again. We're talking about a region that has already suffered genocide, and it's suffering it again. yet. Exactly. And, you know, many of the people in Darfur would say the violence really has been continuing in the interim, but it's exploded during the Civil War. And it's an

incredibly bleak situation there. NPR's Emmanuel Lachin-Moto, thanks so much. Thanks, Steve. And that's up first for Tuesday, November 4th. I'm Michelle Martin. And I'm Steve Inskeep. Thanks for supporting NPR News. Donations from listeners like you make up first and morning edition impossible when you give to your local NPR station. You're helping to keep the whole system strong. You're keeping journalists on the street in your communities around the world. You can contribute by going to donate.npr.org slash up first. Today's episode of Up First was edited by Ben Swayze, Catherine Laidlaw, Kate Bartlett, Mohamed El Bardisi, and Alice Wolfleet. It was produced by Zad Butch, Nia Dumas, and Christopher Thomas. We get engineering support from Stacey Abbott, and our technical

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