African-American Studies is the Foundation of Democratic Movements and A Guide to Resistance; It Cannot Be Erased

By Candece Monteil , National Urban League

11 AM EST, Sun Nov 8, 2026

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Marc H. Morial 

President and CEO

National Urban League

“A people without the knowledge of their history, origin, and culture is like a tree without roots.” - Marcus Garvey

When I graduated high school in New Orleans, America was a different place. Black Americans were all but locked out of economic opportunity because of the color of our skin and the racial caste system that saw us as no more than servants to White Americans; many of whom benefited financially and socially from our enslavement for centuries.

​Growing up in a city rife with segregation, I channeled my frustrations into my studies. When I enrolled at the University of Pennsylvania, an Ivy League institution that was built in part by enslaved people, my people, I knew the best way to reengineer the system was by understanding how it worked and its connection to the conditions of Black Americans in this country. My double major was in economics and African American Studies.

That education prepared me to become a leader who understood that, for America to progress as a nation, it had to provide pathways to financial independence, safety, and sustainability for the people who built it. It was clear to me that at every juncture in this nation’s history where African Americans began to create opportunity for themselves, the efforts were cut off systemically or with physical violence, as we saw in the case of the bombing of Tulsa in 1920.

The fallout from these events, and from policies that blocked the ballot box like literacy tests and poll taxes, has shown us that every effort to stifle us leads to cultural disarray and stalls our ability to move forward.

​Yet, today, we find ourselves once again succumbing to infighting about the same struggles we could have extinguished generations earlier by tackling systemic racism and its impact on our economy, our standing in the world, and our collective understanding of one another.

We have an administration that entered a zero-sum game targeting diversity initiatives with executive orders that so thinly veil their racism it's laughable. The result of those orders has been a massive spike in unemployment, creating a ripple effect through our entire economic system. It’s been cuts to university budgets and to schools that are simply trying to uphold our nation’s values of ensuring that all Americans have access to the American dream regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, or faith. Those cuts have stifled essential medical breakthroughs, cancer research, clean energy development, and the development of equitable, ethical artificial intelligence.

The next victim in the cutting spree is African-American studies.

The University of Texas at Austin, the University of Iowa, and the University of Kansas are just a few institutions that are shuddering or consolidating their African-American studies programs in this climate. Some are citing low enrollment as a reason for their reductions. But it is impossible to ignore the threats of budget cuts and the evaporation of essential federal dollars from an administration circling diversity programs like a hawk.

The restrictions have been so significant that simply mentioning the words “black,” women,” “disabled,” or “inclusion” can risk financial ruin.

But as Dr. Marcus Garvey stated, “A people without the knowledge of their history, origin, and culture is like a tree without roots.” I’d take it a step further and say that a nation without knowledge of its past, its origins, and its culture is like a tree without roots.

African-American studies teaches college students, the young people preparing to lead us into the future, why our country operates the way it does today and provides a blueprint for how to leverage our Democracy and constitutional rights to drive change.

African-American history is not only about the challenges that Black Americans have faced since we arrived in the 13 colonies in bondage; it shows the power of protesting, the endurance of community, and the meaning of community.

It’s a field of research that challenges harmful narratives, as Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois did in his 1935 book Black Reconstruction in America, overturning the prevailing racist Dunning School narrative, proving that post-Civil War democratic experiments failed not because of Black incompetence, but because white elites deliberately fractured multi-racial labor solidarity to re-establish control.

​It was also the focus of Kevin Roberts's Ph.D. dissertation, the President of the Heritage Foundation. The irony of studying slave communities, kinship networks, and survival strategies in Louisiana during the 18th and 19th centuries, while authoring Project 2025, a document designed to strip Americans of our Constitutional rights, cannot be overlooked.

There’s power in these programs and understanding Black history. There is also power to be gained by blocking an increasingly frustrated population’s access to historical practices, thereby demanding more from our leadership and government.

Philosopher George Santayana once said that "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

We are at a critical juncture in our history, inching toward repeating the worst parts of our past and recreating a system that serves only a few. And the only way we will survive it is by standing together. And we can only stand together by understanding and accepting the flaws of our past to build a better future.

We cannot allow a field as precious as African-American Studies to die because of political pressure. Not now, not ever.

If we do, it will be at our own peril.

Floods Bring Rare Relief to US Southwest Reservoirs as Lake Powell Rises 20 Feet

By WUFEI YU

2:04 PM EST, November 8, 2026

PHOENIX (AP) — Recent flooding across the U.S. Southwest is providing rare relief to thirsty reservoirs that had fallen to record lows amid a yearslong megadrought.

Storms in late October and early November sent torrents of water through normally small or dry creeks that overflowed their banks and flooded local communities.

Hundreds of people were told to evacuate, and the flooding cut off access to some areas. Yet most of that water will end up feeding depleted lakes and underground aquifers, said Martin Hoerling, a climate scientist and hydrologist at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

“That’s somewhat of an unexpected boost from Mother Nature,” Hoerling said.

Last winter’s lackluster snowfall did little to recharge water bodies when it melted in the spring and summer, when they typically get their biggest bump of the year.

Then came the chaotic climate phenomenon, El Niño, that has intensified heavy rain and floods. Experts say its impacts will last several more months, potentially further boosting water supplies across the West where water primarily is stored in lakes, aquifers and snowpack.

Lake Powell, the second-largest reservoir in the U.S., rose more than 20 feet (6.1 meters) from its mid-September low — dwarfing its gains from this year’s snowmelt, Hoerling said. Still, the lake remained just over a quarter full, and 15 of its 17 boat launches remained unusable as of Friday.

The floodwaters and additional rain could raise the lake along the Arizona-Utah border further, for a total of over 1.2 million acre-feet — enough to support around 4 million average families for a year, Hoerling estimated.

Rain brings temporary relief to regional and local water supplies

Cities in the region reported some of their wettest weather in decades.

Before storms began dumping about 7 inches (17.78 centimeters) of rain around Pagosa Springs, Colorado, in October, more than 10,000 people in the town and surrounding communities were under water restrictions. Restaurants were encouraged to serve water only on request, town manager David Harris said. Those restrictions are now lifted.

“While the storm was destructive, I think there is a silver lining,” Harris said. “You’re getting a good start to the winter snowpack in the higher elevations.”

Upper Lake Mary, which captures spring snowmelt in Northern Arizona and supplies Flagstaff, Arizona, with up to 40% of its water, received more than 3 billion gallons of water since early October, said Flagstaff water production manager Brian Huntzinger.

Storms last weekend dumped the equivalent of more than two years of water into the town’s surface water supply and provided a buffer for an operation that depends heavily on underground aquifers, Huntzinger said.

“It’s just a great, great thing to see,” Huntzinger said. “We might be overflowing at this rate before we see any snow fly.”

In central Arizona, heavy floodwaters that trapped people in their homes gushed into streams that feed the Verde River. That prompted water officials to release water from two nearly full dams into the Verde’s normally dry stretch in metro Phoenix, said Bo Svoma, the principal meteorologist at the Salt River Project that manages reservoirs on the Salt and Verde rivers.

Wet weather is unlikely to change decisions on the Colorado River

The region remains in drought despite the intense rains.

And decisions already have been made to divvy up water in the Colorado River basin. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, which manages reservoirs in the West, is unlikely to change its water releases from Lake Powell or other areas until it knows when snowpack has peaked, typically around April, said Jack Schmidt, a Utah State University professor who studies the Colorado River.

Reclamation spokesperson Mary Carlson acknowledged conditions have improved but added ”considerable uncertainty remains.”

Under the federal plan for managing the Colorado River’s Lower Basin, California, Nevada and Arizona will collectively reduce water use by 1.25 million acre-feet (about 1.54 billion cubic meters) annually in the next two years. That is enough to fill over 600,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools, with the possibility of larger cuts depending on conditions.

Nevada and Arizona are challenging the plan in court.

Some Arizona cities have agreed to fund preliminary work to reduce reliance on the Colorado River by expanding an existing dam on the Verde River to capture runoff from storms, Svoma said.

“We need to figure out how to be resilient in a drier future. And we’re not quite there yet,” Hoerling said.

Voters Demanded Economic Relief. Trump and Democrats Face Tough Choices on How to Deliver

Associated Press Economics Writer Joshua Boak. (AP Photo/J. David Ake)

By JOSH BOAK

7:44 AM EST, November 8, 2026

WASHINGTON (AP) — Voters have sent a strong election-year message to the new Democratic congressional majority and President Donald Trump: Repair the damage inflation has done to the economy.

Trump, who campaigned on the idea that a Democratic victory in the midterms would trigger a 1929-style economic depression, has maintained that the economy is booming. Since his party lost in Tuesday’s voting, he has claimed he is willing to work with Democrats in the House and Senate, though that’s not something he has done much of in the past.

“I’ll get along, probably, with the Democrats, unless they want to be destructive,” Trump told reporters last week.

After Friday’s strong jobs report showed employers adding 165,000 jobs and the unemployment rate dipping to 4.1%, Trump was defiant. “Democrats may control Congress, but I will NEVER stop fighting for you, and I will VETO anything that hurts America,” he said in a text message to his supporters.

Democrats are seeking to check Trump’s power and are preparing for early fights on government spending. Other challenges include chronic budget deficits, tariffs, artificial intelligence and difficult choices about a Social Security system that could run short of money in as little as six years.

But as long as rising prices keep making middle-class lives less affordable, Democrats and Republicans alike face the risk of angering and alienating voters in the next election cycle.

“Until inflation and interest rates are under control, the likelihood of change elections is going to be high on an ongoing basis,” said Marc Goldwein, senior vice president at the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

Americans want lower prices

Trump’s tariffs and the war against Iran that he launched in February contributed to the consumer price index climbing to 3.7% annually. The president also tried to bully the Federal Reserve, an independent body tasked with keeping inflation low, to slash its benchmark interest rate in ways that could have worsened inflation.

The gridlock of a Republican White House and Democratic Congress gives the Fed more room to maneuver, possibly smoothing the central bank’s ability to return inflation to the 2% target it has failed to reach for nearly six years.

“I think that one of the surprise winners Tuesday was the Fed,” said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, an economist and president of the center-right American Action Forum.

The Democratic Senate could block Trump’s ability to fill potentially open spots on the Fed board, Holtz-Eakin said, removing “Trump’s incentives to meddle with the Fed” and clearing a path for Fed Chair Kevin Warsh “to follow his instincts and aggressively reduce inflation.”

Trump has maintained that the costs of oil, gasoline and diesel will all plummet once the Iran war ends. The problem is he refuses to say when or how the war will come to a conclusion.

John Cochrane, an economist at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, stressed that the Fed’s efforts to combat inflation would be helped if the federal government reduced budget deficits.

“It takes monetary and fiscal restraint,” he said.

The federal government keeps borrowing about $2 trillion annually

The U.S. government keeps amassing debt as tax revenues fall short of burgeoning spending on Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and other programs. Paying the interest on the national debt now tops $1 trillion annually and exceeds spending on the military. The problem could spiral because investors have pushed up the interest rates charged on government debt over the past year.

Neither the White House nor Democrats ran on spending cuts. The president wants an additional $500 billion a year for the military, while some Democratic candidates have pushed for restoring Affordable Care Act subsidies that lapsed under Trump.

Since August, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has repeatedly said the administration would put forward a plan to trim the roughly $2 trillion annual budget deficit. Bessent is working with White House budget director Russell Vought on cuts they’re branding as a “fiscal consolidation plan,” to be released after the election.

Deficit reduction would likely require some combination of tax increases and spending cuts, Goldwein said. But he said that the lowest hanging fruit would be to trim Medicare expenditures in ways that save money for both the government and patients.

“It’s not rocket science,” he said. “The most important thing you can do is reduce healthcare costs and find policies that lower the costs of Medicare, which will reduce deficits and interest rates.”

AI could power stronger growth, but voters have concerns about the technology

When Harvard University economist Jason Furman thinks about the most important economic issues facing the United States, AI is at the top of his list.

“It’s the most screamingly obvious investment boom this country has ever had, or, possibly, second to railroads” in the late 19th century, Furman said.

Using AI, Furman has built an economic analysis tool called Econvitals that replicates some of the work done when he was chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers in Democratic President Barack Obama’s administration.

Econvitals parsed construction spending data on Tuesday and found an 80.6% increase in data center construction over the past year, while spending on building homes, schools, factories and offices had fallen.

The stock market sold off last week on concerns that Democrats could restrict the construction of data centers and impose guardrails on AI. But the American economy still needs the technology to keep fueling growth now and into the future.

Trump has been vociferous in promoting the sector and has taken a hands-off stance on regulating AI, insisting that existing laws and voluntary agreements signed by tech companies are enough. He has shrugged off public concerns about the risks of job losses and large-scale cyberattacks, but a majority in The AP Voter Poll, a sweeping survey of the American electorate conducted in all 50 states, say AI does more harm than good for the economy.

The dilemma is that AI is helping to propel demand in the economy and sustain the stock market. If those slipped, there could be less consumer spending, lower growth and many in the U.S. feeling even worse off financially.

“Every time you have a single strength in an economy you are also having a big vulnerability,” Furman said.

Social Security needs to be rescued

Senators who won six-year terms last week will face the politically fraught challenge of working with Trump’s successor to find ways to save Social Security, which is projected to be unable to pay full benefits at the end of 2032.

Removing the cap on payroll taxes and increasing the retirement age are among the possible lifelines for sustaining the program that provides income to older Americans and those with disabilities. But any changes would likely need to be bipartisan to get enough votes to clear the Senate because Social Security overhauls cannot be made by party-line votes through the reconciliation process.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., said she saw an opening earlier this year to fix Social Security when she overheard Sen. Bernie Moreno, an Ohio Republican, talk about the need to lift the cap on payroll taxes. “I reached out to him in a matter of days,” she said in an interview this summer. The two senators went public with a plan that is still being formulated as legislation.

Warren, who worked with the Republicans on a law this year to encourage the construction of more homes, said other bipartisan efforts had failed because Republican lawmakers had been afraid to cross Trump.

But with Social Security, there is a need to act now. Experts say “the checks that go out to seniors will drop by nearly a quarter” after 2032, Warren said.

“Think what that means, literally, to millions and millions of Americans, who depend on those Social Security checks, or who have parents who depend on them. And Congress is doing nothing,” she said.

Democrats Plan to Push Clean Energy to Lower Bills and Challenge Trump’s Fossil Fuel Agenda

Solar panels generate electricity Friday, Oct. 2, 2026, near Boulder City, Nev. (AP Photo/John Locher)

By  JENNIFER McDERMOTT

8:59 AM EST, November 8, 2026

Some Democrats are promising to push for more clean energy to help tackle rising energy costs when they take control of Congress in January, though President Donald Trump says he will use his veto power aggressively.

With new majorities in the House and Senate after last week’s midterms, Democrats can set an agenda boosting clean energy and addressing climate change. While those are traditionally core priorities of the party, climate was not a central topic in this election cycle.

Democrats can begin investigations and hold hearings into climate policy rollbacks and elimination of green energy grants by the Republican administration, potentially trying to undo some changes and restore renewable energy incentives.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, the top Democrat on the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, said Trump’s clean energy attacks drove up prices for taxpayers. He said Democrats will “work every angle to lower consumers’ energy costs, and we will demand accountability for the massive corruption wrought by Trump’s fossil-fuel donors.”

American Clean Power Association CEO Jason Grumet said everybody who is trying to build clean energy “feels bolstered.”

Enacting major changes would require Republican support because Democrats will lack the numbers to override presidential vetoes. Even then, lower energy bills are not guaranteed because prices also depend on fuel costs, demand and the expense of maintaining the electric grid.

“The wins give Democrats more leverage over spending and more political power to advance a coherent agenda; the question is whether they’ll use that power effectively,” said Lisa Sachs, director of the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment. “The vote was for affordability and opportunity. Democrats now need to be clear about which policies deliver them.”

Trump said after Tuesday’s election that Democrats will send over “things that are insane” and he will veto them, speaking generally about legislation. But in the comments to Fox News, he predicted that “after a couple of months of vetoes,” he and Democrats will find ways to work together.

The White House said in a statement Wednesday that Trump is “committed to unleashing reliable, affordable, and secure energy sources to lower prices, strengthen our grid, and protect our national security, and is willing to work with anyone to accomplish this.”

Trump promised to lower energy prices. Instead, his war with Iran and other policies increased the price of gasoline, diesel and electricity. At the same time, the administration canceled many clean energy projects and grants and slowed clean energy permitting.

Trump particularly dislikes offshore wind. Developer Orsted said Thursday that Revolution Wind, a large wind farm in federal waters off Rhode Island, has started operating commercially.

Will the president change his tune on green energy? That’s doubtful, said former Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., co-chair of the government relations practice at ArentFox Schiff.

“He is likely to keep pushing his energy issues, and I think he will be forced to give some room for a new Congress to recreate a different strategy that will add clean energy,” Dorgan said in an email.

Trump promotes expanding production of oil, natural gas and coal, which cause climate change, because he argues that would give the U.S. the lowest-cost electricity. Mike Sommers, CEO of the American Petroleum Institute, the oil and gas industry’s top lobbying group, said that as voters have changed the balance of political power in Washington, “the affordability message is unmistakable.”

Sommers said in a statement there is a real opportunity for bipartisan cooperation to reduce costs and strengthen the economy, starting with an energy permitting reform proposal announced in September. The legislation is aimed at shortening the timeline to get big energy projects started.

Ife Kilimanjaro, executive director of the U.S. Climate Action Network, said Democrats should reject that proposal and use their stronger position to pass legislation that actually builds out much-needed clean energy.

Reversing Trump’s anti-climate policies

The administration has reshaped the Environmental Protection Agency, reversing pollution limits as it promotes fossil fuels.

Clear Street energy transition analyst Tim Moore said he expects Democrats to investigate the climate and environmental rollbacks, in an effort to block some from taking effect. Democrats could also try amending the Clean Air Act to cut carbon pollution and push back against EPA budget cuts, he added.

Rep. Sean Casten, D-Ill., said he is cautiously optimistic some Republicans will now seek to differentiate themselves from Trump and back pro-environmental policies. But without Republican support, Democrats’ more ambitious bills will largely lay out their agenda for 2028, he added.

Climate is not necessarily at the top of Democrats’ list of priorities. They are targeting healthcare access, trade tariffs and the Iran war.

Rep. Frank Pallone, the New Jersey Democrat who is expected to become chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said the party should focus on healthcare, affordability, consumer and environmental protections, clean energy and regulating Big Tech.

A potential stalemate seen on clean energy and climate policy

David Victor, a professor of innovation and public policy at the University of California, San Diego, largely expects a stalemate at the federal level on climate and energy policy because of the divided government. He said agreement could come on some bipartisan measures such as a permitting overhaul.

Victor thinks Democratic-led investigations and hearings will center on corruption and other topics that may only touch on energy and climate. Like Casten, Victor said many of the Democratic bills likely will not become law, but will outline what Democrats could accomplish if they win the White House in 2028.

“The Democrats are going to be drafting things that the administration’s not going to like. They don’t have the votes to override a veto, and on top of it, the administration is going to be in turmoil because of its own electoral failures and because of all the investigations,” Victor said. “This seems to me, at the federal level, largely a recipe for kind of intense chaos over the next two years.”

One of the biggest wild cards is the behavior of the administration, which could use executive power to double down on rollbacks of climate and environmental rules, he said.

States could advance clean energy without waiting for Congress

Democrats scored victories in races for governor in states long controlled by Republicans, including Texas and Georgia.

Leah Stokes, a political scientist at the UC Santa Barbara, said there could be a lot of state action on climate next year because of those wins. That is where climate leadership has traditionally come from, she noted. At the federal level, Stokes is optimistic about extending clean energy tax credits since some Republicans support that.

Jay Inslee, a former Democratic governor and congressman from Washington, also expects growing momentum for clean energy in states that elected Democratic governors, particularly in states where they also won legislative majorities.

“This is a really powerful instrument for the United States to join the rest of the world and get back in a leadership position, even if we still have a climate denier that might exercise a veto on some things that we want to do federally,” Inslee said. “So I hope people will pay attention to the big progress we’re going to make on a state-level basis.”

___

Associated Press writers Alexa St. John and Matthew Daly contributed to this report.

Native American Women Made History in Tribal, State and Federal Elections

By SAVANNAH PETERS

7:15 AM EST, November 8, 2026

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — A third-grade field trip to the Navajo Nation Council sparked Crystalyne Curley’s political ambition when she witnessed a fiery debate erupt between two tribal lawmakers.

“I thought to myself at a very young age, that’s where I want to be,” Curley said.

On Election Day, Curley surpassed that childhood dream and broke a barrier she says she never imagined as a nine-year-old: She was elected the first woman president of the Navajo Nation.

This week’s elections brought a wave of milestone victories, from the nation’s first Black female governor to the first openly gay man and first Muslim elected to the U.S. Senate. It also marked a turning point for Native American women, whose leadership in their families and communities has rarely translated to formal political power.

Peggy Flanagan became the first Native American woman elected to the Senate, Deb Haaland the first to win a state governorship, and Curley the first to lead one of the largest tribes.

“This is a win for all Navajo women,” Curley told The Associated Press.

Jordan James Harvill, a Cherokee Nation citizen and strategist with the advocacy group Advance Native Political Leadership, said decades of political organizing are bearing fruit as more Native women run for and win office.

“This is a seismic shift that is happening in our communities,” he said.

The Navajo Nation elects its first woman president

Lene Bitsui supported Curley in the Navajo Nation election because she felt she was best positioned to restore order to the tribal government after what she sees as a period of dysfunction. But when Bitsui cast her ballot, she felt pessimistic.

“I thought our people weren’t ready for a female president,” Bitsui said. “I was wrong, and I feel so happy to have been wrong.”

The modern, centralized Navajo government has been led by men since its establishment under federal pressure over a century ago. Navajo has the largest land base of any federally recognized tribe, spanning 27,000 square miles (70,000 square kilometers) in Arizona, New Mexico and Utah, and is second in population to the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma.

Some Navajo people believe traditional teachings prohibit women from holding top government positions. Others say women’s absence from the presidency stands in contrast to the matrilineal structure of Diné society.

“You see the language of tradition used to both deride the possibility of a woman being president and to say that women’s leadership is needed now,” said Jennifer Nez Denetdale, a professor of Diné studies at the University of New Mexico.

Curley, who narrowly defeated attorney Justin Jones, according to unofficial results, told the AP she faced sexist rhetoric while campaigning and expects to be held to a higher standard as the first woman president.

“As women, we have to work twice or triple as hard, especially within Navajo politics,” said Curley, who also was the first female to lead the tribe’s legislative branch as speaker of the tribal council.

After Curley and her running mate Chris Deschene take office in January, they plan to transition the Navajo Nation away from coal development, historically a major economic engine for the tribe, and reassert its leading role in national discussions around federal Indian policy.

The Seneca Nation of Indians in western New York also elected its first woman president, longtime council member Tina Abrams, on Tuesday.

Native women make gains in U.S. Congress

At her Senate victory celebration in St. Paul, Minnesota, Democrat Flanagan, a citizen of the White Earth Nation and the state’s outgoing lieutenant governor, credited supporters from her community.

“I could not run for the U. S. Senate without Native women. I could not exist in the way that I do without Native women,” Flanagan said.

More than 230 years after the U.S. Senate was established, only four Native people have served in the chamber, all men.

“This is a win that shows we can break every single glass ceiling,” Harvill said.

Flanagan will join Oklahoma Republican Sen. Tom Cole, a citizen of the Chickasaw Nation. A victory for Democrat Mary Peltola, a Yup’ik woman, in Alaska’s still unsettled Senate race, would mark the first time three Native people have served in the chamber simultaneously.

In the House, Kansas Democrat Sharice Davids, Ho-Chunk, and Oklahoma Republican Josh Brecheen, Choctaw, won reelection. New York Democrat Claire Valdez, a citizen of Ysleta del Sur Pueblo, and Michigan Democrat Sean McCann, a citizen of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, became the first Native Americans elected to represent their states in Congress.

Deb Haaland notches another first in New Mexico

Haaland’s political career has been defined by historic milestones. She was one of the first two Native women elected to Congress in 2018 before becoming the first Native American to lead a U.S. Cabinet agency, the Interior Department.

Now, in her home state of New Mexico, the Laguna Pueblo citizen, will break ground as the first female Native governor of a U.S. state.

“I think it’s a long time coming,” said Haaland, who traces her ancestry in what is now New Mexico back 800 years.

She is tasked with making good on campaign promises to make life more affordable for struggling New Mexicans and addressing persistently poor education outcomes in the state.

Haaland, who is affectionately known as “Auntie Deb” in parts of Indian Country, was tearful reflecting on the support she has received from Native voters and other Native women in politics, including Davids and Flanagan.

“It makes me very happy that we’re able to have a presence,” Haaland said. “It’s not just a slogan. It matters that people feel represented.”

How a Mississippi Election Came Down to the Clerk’s Office

November 8, 2026 at 5:00 a.m. 

Summary

By Robert Samuels, Washington Post

DURANT, Miss. — The ripples of the blue tsunami started in the Delta. Down a tiny road covered in brown leaves from the large oak trees was a house with wood-paneled walls covered with quotes from Maya Angelou and photos of Harriet Tubman. There, Kameisha Smith, 31, sat at a folding table and pressed her long lavender nails on her laptop keyboard, staring at a spreadsheet of people who might solidify a historic change to this country’s political trajectory.

It was 36 hours after a jaw-dropping midterm election, and pundits across the country wondered how this deeply conservative state, with its history of disenfranchisement and disenchantment, ended up with an African American prosecutor named Scott Colom within striking distance of winning election to the U.S. Senate.

“This race has everybody on pins and needles, pins and needles,” Smith said. “This has been the most engagement from young people around here in this election, and everyone wants to know, what’s taking so long? And I’ve got to make sure all their votes count.”

Yes, Colom had zeitgeist-catching commercials and captured the resentment toward Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, who had shrugged off worries about the high cost of beef. But there was a more desperate, more granular engine powering record-high turnout and engagement among the state’s Black youth.

Across the Mississippi Delta — poor, Black, rural — there were houses like the one where Smith was busy at work, where organizers spent months figuring out how to get a community of nonvoters excited about reengaging in democracy.

When Colom was trying to figure out the final message for his Senate campaign, he and his team chose to end with a commercial about Medgar Evers, the African American veteran whom white supremacists killed as he was conducting voter registration campaigns.

“We can’t just ask people to vote for me,” Colom said in an interview with The Washington Post on Thursday morning. “We just got to talk about sacrifice. We got to talk about the importance of voting.”

It was also about stressing the idea of what he called “Mississippi Values” — including Evers’s audacious and righteous response to abusive power. Those values were revealed in the work of Fannie Lou Hamer and the Mississippi Freedom Party, and others who worked during the Civil Rights Era to break some of the most racist policies in the South. Still, Colom knew it would take a herculean effort in a place that hadn’t elected a Black politician to statewide office since the fall of Reconstruction.

Smith just focused on reaching would-be voters where she grew up in Holmes County. It is one of the smaller counties in the state — about 15,000 people, 80 percent Black, with 34 percent living below the poverty line. But it was a place where Colom could run up the score to offset Whiter, more conservative districts.

Smith had enlisted canvassers, offering them an hourly wage that dwarfed what they could make at the local Sonic or the DG Market. They drove into housing projects and down country roads, looking to persuade young people to register and older people who had stopped casting ballots to start believing again that their vote matters.

This year, an expected 58 percent of eligible voters there cast ballots, the biggest increase since 2024 of any county in the state, according to a Post analysis of election results and census data. Holmes County had a 16-point increase in its voter turnout compared with 2018, the last midterm election with a similarly competitive Senate race. But there was still work to do. The Senate race between Colom and incumbent Hyde-Smith was too close to call, and Smith wanted to make sure that no ballot was thrown out unfair.

So, with one hand, she scanned down her list of voters that her group had registered and began calling and texting those voters with the other, double-checking if there was any trouble at the polling booths.

The phone blinked and buzzed with responses from first-time voters, which Smith found affirming. But they told her about many problems, too — some said they had to cast “affidavit ballots” because of some sort of mishap at the polling place.

A ballot could provisionally be set aside for a host of reasons. Maybe the voter showed up without an ID, or they might have voted in the wrong precinct or moved without changing their address. An election committee had to review those affidavit ballots by hand, and, in some cases, voters had five business days to address the mistake.

The campaigns estimated there were originally as many as 20,000 instances of voters who cast such ballots. They could make a difference in a race in which about 2,500 votes separate the two candidates.

Smith wanted to get as many ballots counted as possible.

“People are tired of it all,” she said. “They know that people are trying to change the rules on us. And because they voted, I want to make sure they all counted.”

So she and her team of canvassers vowed to crisscross the county to find them before it was too late.

Her phone buzzed again.

After the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act in April, all manner of organizations — from Black Voters Matter to the NAACP to regional nonprofits — were sowing money into the South to energize majority-Black districts with low voter turnout. Holmes County was high on their list.

Smith started organizing in her hometown when she was just in second grade, launching a petition lobbying the school board for new playground equipment. She was hooked, later forgoing finishing college to do community organizing and youth training around Holmes County.

National organizations sought the help of Smith and others to strategize on reviving activism after the Voting Rights Act decision this spring. But in meetings, Smith said, she grew tired of hearing older community leaders complaining about young people not caring enough about the future. No one asked them why. So, she put together a survey asking people under 35 about their voting habits. She distributed it online and at churches.

About 75 responded. Most said they were concerned about the high cost of insurance and neighborhood violence. Some said they were hesitant to vote because it was unclear what any elected official could do for them. Some avoided voting because they did not want to have to serve on a jury.

In response, Smith typed up four-by-six index cards explaining the difference between a senator and a House representative. She secured money to pay people $20 an hour to register voters.

Smith wanted her canvassers young. She signed up 15, 11 of them under 40, and taught them the importance of being nonpartisan when registering people to vote.

She encouraged them to start their voter registration journeys with their own families. One canvasser, Shan’terrius Sly, a 19-year-old honors student at Jackson State, persuaded two dozen family members to sign up. “I’ve always wanted to be an activist,” Sly said. “It’s really time for a new generation to step up and do things. Some of the older generations weren’t invested. Gen Z is aware. We see what’s going on. We aren’t going to let it slide.”

They knocked on doors in the housing projects and drove down long dirt roads to make sure people were registered. They found voters at community events where young people met to ride dirt bikes. If there was a house party, there was a canvasser.

“They were bringing 12 to 13 forms a day,” Smith said. “The county is small, so that’s a lot.”

Smith tallied that the group registered 283 new voters in a county with a voting population of around 12,000. And then, she made and printed guides featuring candidates and their positions, and handed them out to the men hanging out on the street and set up stations at Halloween events called “Trunk or Treat,” where neighbors decorate their cars and put candy in their trunks.

On Election Day, the canvassers gathered at the old house, known as the Nollie Jenkins Family Center, before checking on precincts. If they did not see any voters at the precinct, they drove into the community, rolled down their car windows and asked people if they needed a ride to the polls.

Smith herself drove 15 people, the last of them around 6:50 p.m., which is when she, too, stood in line to cast her ballot before the 7 p.m. deadline. When she handed over her ID, the poll worker looked at her and shook her head.

It turned out that Smith had been purged from the voting rolls because she didn’t update her address.

“I had been so busy trying to register other people that I didn’t check my own,” Smith said. Her ballot was one of 2,443 purged in the county. Her vote would not count.

After 7:30, the canvassers returned to the house and watched the returns. At the beginning, Hyde-Smith had a small, healthy lead. But Holmes County’s votes had not been submitted.

Close to midnight, the Holmes County votes came in. And Colom was ahead by 28 votes.

“We pushed him ahead,” Smith said. “I could not believe it. We showed that our votes matter.”

The next day, Colom traveled to a historically Black college outside Jackson with free pizza to thank the college students who supported him. At night, he ate wings in the basement of the chapel with volunteers. Hyde-Smith told the media she was certain she would emerge victorious, and the governor expressed certainty that she would win.

Attorneys flew in from across the country to help ensure that there would be no foul play when handling the ballots. And Smith’s phone kept buzzing, filled with messages from people from Holmes County who wanted to make sure their votes were not lost in the fray.

Colom has a history of being a trailblazer. At age 28, he became the youngest and first Black judge appointed in the history of Lowndes County and later the first Black city prosecutor for the city of Columbus. He successfully ran for district attorney for Circuit Court District 16 in 2015, running on a reformist agenda that emphasized diversion programs for nonviolent offenders, and unseated a nearly 30-year incumbent. As district attorney, he managed a small staff and personally prosecuted more than two dozen jury trials — obtaining guilty verdicts in nearly all of them.

But Rep. Bennie Thompson, the long-standing congressman from Jackson, told him in the early stages of his Senate campaign that it was most important to be known “as a listener. You’ve got to be out there so people feel like they know you.”

So he barnstormed the state, holding events in all 82 counties — and noting that Hyde-Smith had not hosted a town hall in six years.

“I know so much is at stake,” Colom told The Post after the election. “So because of my ancestors’ sacrifices, I knew that I had no excuse. If I was tired, I said, ‘Listen, I got to keep going.’ If I felt like somebody was like, ‘What would give you a day off?’ I’m like, ‘No, give me a town hall.’ I wanted to make sure I just left it all on the field. So at the end of it, regardless of the outcome, I could feel confident that I honor my ancestors. I honored their sacrifices by sacrificing in ways that’s not even comparable to their sacrifices.”

Colom went to a Trump rally in Corinth in a sweatshirt and tech pants, asking people what they thought about tariffs and gas prices. Video of his casual interactions with the group went viral. His campaign became known for its tart commercials, including a parody of “Sinners” written by his twin brother that portrays a fictional Hyde-Smith as a restless spirit asking for one more chance to keep her promises. Another mocked Hyde-Smith’s suggestion that residents just eat other proteins if beef prices were too high.

But while the national media marveled at their wit, people across the state marveled at something else: They actually knew the people talking in the videos.

“I recognized a man in the video because he used to buy lunch from me at the gas station,” said Alexis York, 29, a federal worker in Jackson, who said she was motivated to vote for the first time in this election. “And that made me feel like he really understood where we were coming from. He wasn’t using actors. So my spirit just told me that he should be the one to win.”

On Thursday morning, Colom walked into a popular greasy spoon called Brent’s Drugs to eat breakfast with volunteers. Three women — two Black, one White — sat at a table marveling at what his election would mean for the state.

“In the shadow of everything, especially with the Nolan Wells case, every time Mississippi comes up, it’s been a negative,” Nickie Gray, 57, said to the other volunteers. “My relatives who live outside, they’re afraid to come here. So with Scott in office, maybe we could let them know that this place has positive things.”

“They think it’s super racist here, and there’s an element of that,” Lee Parrott, 68, replied. “But [with this campaign], I think White people have shown they’re more willing to listen. They’re just frustrated with people thinking that Mississippi is so, so racist.”

Jackie Washington, 73, looked at Colom eating breakfast with his wife at the counter and told the women that she remembered when Black people couldn’t eat at that counter. Now, the Black person dining there was looking like he would represent the entire state, if things kept going the way they were going.

“This place can still change things,” Washington said. “Don’t count us out.”

Later that afternoon, Smith left her home base and headed to the clerk’s office in nearby Lexington to make sure votes were counted. As she pulled into the parking lot, she saw a tall Black man with tiny locks carrying a sheet of paper walking to the car.

“Did you vote?” she asked.

“This was my first time,” said Corey Ellington, 24, a high school football coach. “I was excited about it, but they said something was wrong with my address.”

“Did you get purged?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” Ellington said.

“All right, honey, I’ll find out for you,” she said before walking through the metal detectors and into the clerk’s office. It was a quiet place, with light caramel-colored walls and thick red reading books, and the air freshener made the place smell like a floral soap.

“I have questions about ballots,” she said as she walked to the back, where a county staffer was looking over the voter information. Smith gave him the name of a resident who said she had registered to vote on Sept. 6 but was told at the polls that her registration form was dated Oct. 6, one day after the deadline.

The clerk looked up the voter’s name and birthday, and confirmed the form was received Oct. 6. Smith asked him to pull the physical registration form, just to be sure, and the clerk pulled a stack of papers from the top of a cabinet and searched for the voter.

Smith looked behind him and watched him work. No dice. It turned out that the voter had an organization mail the form in for her, and the organization handed the forms in late. That vote was lost.

“This is why I always come to you and hand them in,” Smith said. “I don’t like when people mess with the mail.”

“Is there any other one I can help you with?” the clerk asked.

Smith rubbed her fingers on her temples and then pulled out notes on her phone with a list of names of voters who had complained about the ballots.

“Yes,” she exhaled.

In the courtroom next door, four election officials stood at a table in front of the bench with a box filled with affidavit ballots. Sly, the 19-year-old canvasser, and four other residents sat on the benches behind, watching the group to ensure that they did not toss out ballots unfairly.

The protocol: Election Commissioner Elnora Patton would read out the name, the address and the phone number — if all were provided — and then describe the issue with the ballot. As the committee read the names, Sly knew the potential voters so well that she could correct Patton when she mispronounced their names. And then, the list of voters with questionable ballots got even more familiar.

So many were family members she had helped to register. One was her cousin, whose 18th birthday was on Oct. 8. He was only 17 when he registered, but Sly thought he would be fine to vote because he would have been of age come Election Day.

“This ballot is rejected,” Patton said. He needed to be 18 by the registration deadline, not Election Day. Sly looked down, frustrated by her misunderstanding of the rules.

The next ballot they called was for Patricia Sly, her great-aunt. The election official eyed the ballot and said it would be rejected if Patricia Sly did not come to the booth with her ID.

“Excuse me,” Sly said. “I brought her to the office earlier today, and she showed her ID, and they said her ballot would count.”

“I don’t see it on the computer,” said another commissioner, looking at the voting rolls.

“Well, I know I brought her,” Sly said. “Please check again.”

The official left the courtroom and returned in a couple of minutes.

“Someone left a copy of the ID on my desk,” she said. The ballot was accepted.

Then came Lawanda Sly, another aunt. She also forgot to bring her ID to the polling place.

“I can get her over here!” Sly said.

But night had fallen, and the commission was closing up for the day. Sly vowed that she would bring her over the next day to make sure that the ballot counts were accurate.

On Friday morning, Sly climbed into her Audi and started blasting Kendrick Lamar as she made her way to pick up her Aunt Lawanda.

“When you’re doing activism, Kendrick just has a song for everything you’re feeling,” she said as the lyrics pounded: “We gon’ be alright.” Sly drove past the clerk’s office and the Dollar General and the large field of grass filled with cars with broken doors and trunks, then scaled up a rocky, pothole-filled street that led to her aunt’s house.

“You ready?” Sly asked.

Lawanda Sly walked out in a T-shirt and blue jeans, jumped into the car and started munching on Doritos from a bag in the back. At 41, she worked as a personal care assistant and did not regularly carry her ID, which is why it had slipped her mind when she went to the polls.

A Colom campaign rally last month in Tupelo. (Brad Vest/Getty Images)

“So did Colom win?” Lawanda asked.

“He’s still in the lead,” her niece replied. At this point, Colom’s lead had extended to 2,000 votes.

“I know that White woman’s mad,” Lawanda told her. “I’m excited for him.”

“It’s Mississippi, so you never know,” Sly replied. She understood the state’s history, its eagerness to purge votes.

Sly walked with her aunt into the courtroom, where the election officials were examining even more affidavit ballots.

“I found her!” Sly said, and the election official smiled. Lawanda giggled and beamed as she handed in her ID to the group, who verified it to be real.

“We are going to accept this ballot,” Patton said.

Lawanda and her niece smiled as they made their way back to the car.

Sly dropped her off and looked at her phone again. More messages. She drove to a stranger’s house with a dog barking and rang the doorbell before leaving a message that he should come to the clerk’s office to check on his ballot.

She called another stranger who promised he would show up with his license at the clerk’s office when he was off work. There was one woman who needed to bring her ID to the polls but left no address, so Sly and Smith were messaging and calling friends in Cruger — population 268 — to figure out if someone knew where she lived and could tell her to come check her ballot. She drove to pick up another woman who had lost her license and had not been sure her vote would count if she showed her voter ID — until she spoke with Sly.

“My vote’s going to count,” Lakeyda Jackson, 29, told her. “But I’m nervous. We got out and did it. The point has been made; our community went out and voted, and he’s ahead. Why haven’t they declared him the winner yet? It’s unfair to you and all the work you put in.”

“It’s like it’s unbelievable when Black people do something,” Sly said. “But we are going to make them believe it.”

They pulled up to the clerk’s office and stepped out of the car. She looked at her phone, and Smith had sent the names of even more people who had difficulties with ballots. So many voices had the potential to be lost.

“We’re doing it,” Sly said. And she walked in with Jackson to ensure that at least one more person’s voice was heard.

Patrick Marley, Katie Mettler and Lydia Sidhom contributed to this report.

Abayomi Azikiwe, PANW Editor, Featured on Black Agenda Report with Executive Editor Margaret Kimberley Analyzing the Midterm Elections with Emphasis on Michigan Senate Race

A hard fought Senate race in the state of Michigan resulted in a comfortable victory for Dr. Abdul Rahman Mohammed El-Sayed. He will be the first Muslim elected to the Senate in the United States.

To watch this interview in its entirety just click on the following URL: Abdul El-Sayed's Senate Victory in Michigan - YouTube

The victory in the Abdul for Senate campaign took place within the broader context of the triumph of Democratic candidates which swept the House of Representatives and the Senate.

Dr. El-Sayed came out in opposition to the war in Iran and for the end of the genocide in Gaza.

Huge numbers of new politicians will enter the House and Senate. Others were elected as Governors in several states particularly in the South.

These developments portend much for the future of politics and race relations in the United States over next few months and two years.

Africa Governance Centre Chair Hails Ethiopia’s Investments in Infrastructure and Energy

Addis Ababa, November 6, 2026 (ENA)— Ethiopia’s continued investments in infrastructure, energy, industry, and productive activities demonstrate the country's commitment to economic transformation, Africa Governance Centre Executive Chair Benedicta Lasi said.

Addressing the Second African Political Parties Summit on its second day, Lasi praised Ethiopia’s development efforts, congratulating Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, his government, and the Ethiopian people for their commitment to transforming the country.

Ethiopia’s Medemer-led economic policies have gained traction over the last few years in driving sustainable transformation and bringing forward young leaders, she noted.

Stressing the role of political organizations, the Executive Chair stated that long-term development priorities such as industrialization, energy systems, and agricultural productivity require sustained commitment beyond electoral cycles. 

Lasi stressed that political parties must prepare capable leaders, develop sound policies, and strengthen institutional capacity before assuming government responsibilities.

 “An election can place a party in government overnight, but it cannot supply overnight knowledge required to run a ministry, negotiate a major contract, or manage the national economy,” she added.

The Executive Chair emphasized that party schools, research institutions, and policy structures are essential to test proposals, develop sector-specific knowledge, and prepare people for public office. 

Political parties, she added, should help maintain development priorities across changes in government to ensure that national programmes continue over time.

Lasi also emphasized the need for closer cooperation between the African Union and political parties to advance Agenda 2063 and the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).

 She expressed hope that this cooperation would support the proposed African Political Parties Agenda 2040, which aims to establish standards for internal democracy, national development visions, and leadership development, while promoting women’s participation and young people’s contribution.

Highlighting the Africa Governance Centre’s work, the Executive Chairperson said its African Political Parties Initiative (APPI), launched in 2025, provides a platform for political parties to exchange experiences and strengthen their capacity to govern. 

She noted that the initiative has expanded international cooperation through partnerships in Latin America and Asia, leading to the launch of the Intercontinental Dialogue among Political Parties in Seoul, South Korea, in September 2026.

Lasi also highlighted the Centre’s collaboration with African legislative institutions to strengthen parliamentarians’ capacity to shape national development policies and support economic transformation.

AI Stock Crash Wipes $3.2trln off Wall Street in One Day, Asia Follows

By Al Mayadeen English

Source: FT + WSJ + AFP

6 Nov 2026 12:11

US stocks lost $3.2tn in a day after the Democratic midterm win raised fears of AI data center curbs, and the selloff hit Asia and Europe on Friday.

US stocks lost $3.2 trillion on Thursday, with the Nasdaq 100 plunging 6.4% and the S&P 500 falling 4.4%, after investors concluded that the Democratic midterm victory could slow the artificial intelligence spending boom that carried Wall Street to record highs this year.

The selling crossed into Asia on Friday, pushing Japan and Taiwan into bear markets and triggering a trading halt in Seoul, while European shares also opened lower.

The $3.2 trillion drop on the S&P Composite 1500 was the biggest in dollar terms since the turn of the millennium, according to Financial Times calculations based on FactSet data. The percentage fall was smaller than in past crises such as 2008, because US stocks are now worth far more, but the S&P 500’s 4.4% loss was its worst session since last year’s “liberation day” tariff turmoil.

The Nasdaq Composite fell 5.5%, its sharpest daily percentage loss since April 2025, AFP reported. In dollar terms, the damage was without precedent, with the index shedding an estimated $2.49 trillion in market value, according to Dow Jones Market Data cited by the Wall Street Journal. The previous record was $1.87 trillion, set on June 5. The PHLX Semiconductor index had its worst day since the depths of the pandemic, and the selling dragged every sector of the S&P 500 into the red.

Chipmakers, Musk’s companies lead the fall

Nvidia, the company most closely tied to the AI surge, tumbled 9.3%, wiping more than $400 billion off its value and leaving the stock down for the year, the FT and the WSJ reported.

Micron lost 17%, Broadcom 10% and Qualcomm 9.5%, while memory makers SanDisk and Western Digital, among this year’s best performers, dropped 22% and 17%. The Magnificent Seven group of tech giants lost roughly $1 trillion in combined value, according to the WSJ.

The rout reached beyond technology. Caterpillar slid 6.4%, and Walmart fell 1.1%. Tesla dropped 10.8% and SpaceX 9.1%, extending losses from Wednesday, with both companies tied to Elon Musk’s Texas operations, including the planned Terafab chip plant.

Data-center fears meet a concentrated market

Investors dumped shares on fears that newly elected Democrats would restrain the data-center expansion that underpins AI spending.

Michigan’s senator-elect Abdul El-Sayed has called for a “full-on pause” in frontier AI development, and South Carolina’s incoming senator Annie Andrews has proposed a two-year ban on new data-center construction.

In Texas, which has more planned data-center projects than any other state, Democratic governor-elect Gina Hinojosa wants new approvals halted until the Legislature can pass protections next year, the WSJ reported.

JonesTrading’s chief market strategist Mike O’Rourke told WSJ that next year’s earnings forecasts “can no longer be trusted” because AI infrastructure companies, especially chipmakers, drive S&P 500 earnings growth.

The scale of the fall reflects how top-heavy the market has become. The ten largest companies, dominated by the technology giants at the center of the AI buildout, made up 40.8% of the S&P 500 as of May 18, according to JP Morgan Asset Management. That was up from 26.6% at the peak of the dot-com bubble, and the ten generated just over a third of the index’s earnings. A shock to the spending plans behind a handful of firms therefore moves the whole market.

Goldman Sachs estimated in April that AI-linked stocks accounted for nearly 45% of the S&P 500, up from about 25% in 2022.

Trump blames voters and Democrats

Trump blamed the Democrats for the crash in posts on Truth Social on Thursday evening. He wrote that the market fell because the “Dumocrats” had a big Tuesday and told voters they “only have yourselves to blame.”

He added that Americans’ 401(k) retirement accounts had dropped as a result, and promised that the United States would soon be “bigger and stronger than ever before.”

Rout spreads to Asia

Japan’s Nikkei 225 fell 6% on Friday, its worst day since Trump launched his trade war in April 2025, leaving it 20% below its June peak.

Taiwan’s Taiex, dominated by chipmaker TSMC, dropped 4.5% and is also 20% below its October peak, putting both markets in bear territory.

South Korea’s Kospi fell 6%, after diving as much as 8.5% in early trade, which triggered a circuit breaker that halted trading for 20 minutes, AFP reported.

Memory chip makers took the heaviest losses. SK Hynix slid 10.8% and Samsung Electronics 6.4%, while SoftBank Group, which holds roughly 13% of OpenAI, plunged 10.4%. In early trading, Tokyo Electron fell about 9% and Kioxia 13%.

“There’s nowhere to hide,” Lotus Asset Management’s chief investment officer Hao Hong told FT, adding that the correction was “far from finished.” Another Asia investment chief cited by FT said many investors were being forced out of their technology positions by risk limits.

Europe falls less

The Stoxx Europe 600 and the FTSE 100 both opened 1.5% lower on Friday, after the Stoxx index slipped only 0.4% on Thursday. Europe has little direct exposure to AI stocks, and ASML fell just 0.3% at the open, with the technology sub-index down under 1%.

The weakness spread further than technology, however. More than 90% of Stoxx 600 stocks were in the red in early trading, with retail and healthcare shares down around 2%.

Lombard Odier’s multi-asset portfolio manager Florian Ielpo said the AI de-rating had turned into a broad de-risking, raising the question of how long it would last.

US stock futures signaled a calmer start on Friday, with Nasdaq 100 contracts up 0.3% and S&P 500 contracts 0.4% lower. Whether the pause holds depends on how fast Democrats move on data-center curbs and how much of this year’s AI spending plans survive them.

Georgia Gov.‑elect Keisha Lance Bottoms Stands on the Shoulders of Stacey Abrams, Charlotta Bass and Countless Other Black Women Who Dreamed

November 6, 2026 12:09pm EST

There are elections that change the political map. And then there are elections that make you wonder whether the land itself remembers.

Georgia remembers.

The auction blocks. The cotton fields. The lynching trees. The Black women who cleaned governors’ homes but could not dream of becoming governor themselves.

And now Keisha Lance Bottoms has been elected Georgia’s first Black woman governor. The first Black woman elected governor of any American state.

Bottoms has traced her ancestry back five generations to an enslaved person on a plantation near Crawfordville, Georgia.

An ancestor held in bondage on Georgia soil. A descendant elected to govern it.

The same earth. An entirely different claim to power. How many women had to believe in a future they would never live to see?

Bottoms’s victory represents the paradox of Black political advancement amid racial violence and the often-unrecognized labor of women who build futures they may never inhabit. Ultimately, Bottoms’ victory reflects both extraordinary progress and the unfinished work of American democracy.

The children who deserved a future

I keep thinking about the little children.

Between 1979 and 1981, Atlanta was terrorized by the disappearances and murders of Black children and young adults. Mothers pleaded for answers. Families lived in a city where childhood itself had become dangerous.

The murders unfolded just years after Maynard Jackson’s historic 1973 election as Atlanta’s first Black mayor. His victory announced a new era of Black political power. Yet that power could not shield the city’s most vulnerable children. Suspicions of Ku Klux Klan involvement circulated, although the Klan’s responsibility was never established.

That distinction matters. So does the fear.

Bottoms was born in 1970. She was 9 when the murders began. She grew up in the same Atlanta where Black parents searched desperately for their missing children. She belonged to the generation whose futures were being stolen. And now she is preparing to lead the entire state.

What a terrible, beautiful, complicated thing.

Those murdered children were not symbols waiting to become useful to history. They were sons and daughters who deserved the ordinary miracle of growing older. They deserved a future.

Bottoms later occupied the mayor’s office that Jackson first opened to Black leadership. Now she is preparing to occupy the governor’s mansion. History has not erased its cruelty. But it has delivered an astonishing answer.

And this victory does not belong to Bottoms alone.

The woman who sowed the seeds

This victory belongs, in no small measure, to democracy advocate, legislator and lawyer Stacey Abrams. Perhaps those who recognize what Abrams made possible have sent her flowers.

Abrams ran for Georgia governor in 2018 and 2022. She lost both races. But through the New Georgia Project and Fair Fight, organizations focused on engaging voters and protecting voting rights, she helped build an electorate that could imagine Georgia differently. She registered voters, challenged barriers to participation, and refused to accept that the South’s political future was fixed.

And now another Black woman has won the office Abrams twice sought, in the third gubernatorial race in a row headed by a Black Democratic woman. There is something biblical about the path Abrams steadfastly cleared. I think of Moses, guiding his people toward the Promised Land but never entering it himself.

Abrams’ journey is not over. Nor should her accomplishments be measured by another woman’s victory. But I believe there is sacred work in preparing a future you may never personally enjoy. Some people plant trees. Some people sit in their shade. Stacey Abrams planted. Bottoms is standing beneath the branches.

And as a scholar of Black media history, I can reach even further back, to another woman who understood the audacity of claiming political power: Charlotta Bass.

In 1952, Bass became the first Black woman nominated for vice president of the United States, running on the Progressive Party ticket.

The future Charlotta dared to imagine

Before the Voting Rights Act in 1965, before the March on Washington in 1963, before Jackson was elected mayor in 1973 and before Abrams or Bottoms drew their first breaths, there was Bass.

A Black newspaper publisher who confronted segregation, police brutality and white supremacist violence in her four-decade ownership of The California Eagle, Bass understood that political power was about more than winning office. It was about who had the right to imagine themselves in one.

Bass ran when a Black woman entering the White House seemed almost unimaginable. Almost. But not to her. I imagine she would have loved this election. And I suspect she would have had pointed questions for Gov.-elect Bottoms.

What will you do for the poor? The disenfranchised? How will you protect the vote that brought you here?

History-making is not the same as justice-making, and representation matters. The true measure of Bottoms’ victory will be whether Georgians experience the more just state she promised to bring about.

The work beyond the win

For generations, Black women have been asked to save a democracy that would not save them. We have carried clipboards, protest signs and entire movements on our backs. We have been told to wait. To be patient. To be grateful.

And now a Black woman has been elected to govern Georgia.

The children have not returned. The past has not been undone. But something has shifted. Charlotta dreamed it. Stacey helped build it. Keisha has won it. And somewhere, another little Black girl is watching. She may not understand the history. She may only know that the governor-elect looks like her. For now, that is enough to begin a dream.

And history has taught us what can happen when a Black girl begins to dream.

‘Black Women Are Not Waiting for History to Happen’: The 2026 Midterm Elections Prove It

After 72 Black women were on the ballot and a blue wave that included historic wins, Black women’s political power is gaining.

By Kay Wicker

Nov 6, 2026

Georgia Gov.-elect Keisha Lance Bottoms speaks during an election night watch party at the Atlanta Marriott Marquis on November 03, 2026 in Atlanta, Georgia. Bottoms defeated Republican gubernatorial candidate Rick Jackson to become the nation's first Black woman governor. (Photo by Megan Varner/Getty Images)

Before anyone even cast a ballot on Election Day this year, Black women had already made history.

On Tuesday, Nov. 3, during the 2026 Midterms, there was a remarkable number of Black women on the ballot in races across the country. 72 to be exact—four U.S. Senate nominees, 40 House nominees, two gubernatorial candidates, and 26 women vying for other statewide offices.

According to data by the Higher Heights Leadership Fund and Rutgers University’s Center for American Women and Politics, 114 Black women in total sought House seats, up from 88 in 2024, while another 13 pursued Senate seats, up from 11.

“From the possibility of three or more Black women serving together in the United States Senate to the opportunity to elect our nation’s first Black woman governor, these races represent the continued expansion of Black women’s political power,” Glynda C. Carr, President and CEO of Higher Heights Leadership Fund, said in a release. 

The historic showing has arrived alongside a massive blue wave in which Democrats have reclaimed both chambers of Congress, with Black women voters helping to deliver many of these wins. The 2026 Midterms have also ushered in a slew of historic victories for Black women candidates, including former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, who became the first Black woman elected governor of a U.S. state. And while some of the most closely watched candidates fell short, this election cycle has still offered plenty of indication we are experiencing the literal changing face of American politics.

On election night, Bottoms managed to defeat Republican Rick Jackson, ending more than two decades of Republican control of the governor’s mansion. 

“Georgia, this win is for all of us. I will be a governor for all of Georgia,” Bottoms said in her victory speech. “We sent a message loud and clear that we want a leader who will put Georgia first and who will stand up to all the chaos coming out of Washington, D.C. But even more importantly, you sent the message that in these times of division and acrimony, you believe in something foundational, and that is hope.”

Meanwhile, over in the U.S. Virgin Islands, former longtime congressional delegate Stacey Plaskett became the first woman elected governor of the territory. And the wins just kept coming. 

In Illinois, Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton won her bid for the U.S. Senate, joining Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland and Lisa Blunt Rochester of Delaware to make history as the first time three Black women will serve in the chamber at the same time. Then, as 29-year-old Melat Kiros was becoming the first Black woman elected to Congress from the state of Colorado, over in New York, former City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams became the state’s first Black woman elected lieutenant governor. Georgia state Rep. Jasmine Clark also secured a congressional victory, adding to the growing number of Black women headed to Washington.

However, of course, the evening was not without its upsets. In Florida, state Rep. Angie Nixon lost her bid to unseat Republican Sen. Ashley Moody, but not without making the race considerably close. 

“I promise y’all that we may have lost this battle but the war is not over,” Nixon told supporters on election night. 

Elsewhere, Marquita Bradshaw in Tennessee and N’Kiyla “Jasmine” Thomas in Oklahoma also fell short in their respective Senate bids. Then, in West Orange, New Jersey, after enduring a campaign trail that included receiving racist and threatening voicemails, Councilwoman Tammy Williams lost her bid for mayor. 

Even still, there is something really encouraging about the sheer number of Black women who entered the political arena this year. This momentum, which has been brewing since before Crystal Bird Fauset became the first Black woman elected to a state legislature in Pennsylvania in 1938 or Shirley Chisholm became the first Black woman elected to Congress before launching her groundbreaking presidential campaign in 1972, was bolstered even more by Stacey Abrams, who made history as the first Black woman to secure a major-party gubernatorial nomination in 2018. 

And while she did not win that race, her organizing and voter engagement efforts helped build the political infrastructure that contributed to Democratic victories in Georgia, including Bottoms’ historic win this year.

Their stories stand as reminders that the impact of a political campaign doesn’t always begin and end on election night. Since they won the right to vote through the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Black women have been among the country’s most dedicated voters, organizers, and advocates, even while being denied access to many of its most powerful offices. And after increasingly challenging modern circumstances, from the Black maternal health crisis and the rampant job loss among them to police brutality and policy that continues to ignore their best interests despite their loyalty, it’s little wonder why they are increasingly seeking those offices themselves.

Or as Carr said, “Black women are not waiting for history to happen. They are stepping forward to make it.” 

2 African American Women Make History in Pee Dee Elections

by Tonya Brown

Thu, November 5, 2026 at 6:17 AM

2 African American women make history in Pee Dee elections

Democrats Cynthia Ford (left) and Susan McGill (right) broke longstanding political barriers with victories in the races for South Carolina House District 57 and 12th Judicial Circuit solicitor. (Credit: Provided by Cynthia Ford/Susan McGill)

Who did Cynthia Ford defeat in House District 57?

What role will Susan McGill hold in the 12th Circuit?

Why was Ford's campaign described as grassroots?

topics:

Cynthia Ford

Susan McGill

Pee Dee

South Carolina

House District 57

12th Circuit solicitor

African American history

Democrats

PEE DEE COUNTY, S.C. (WPDE) — Two African American women made history in the Pee Dee on Tuesday, winning elections to political offices that have never been held by African Americans.

Democrats Cynthia Ford and Susan McGill broke longstanding political barriers with victories in the races for South Carolina House District 57 and 12th Judicial Circuit solicitor.

Ford defeated Republican incumbent Lucas Atkinson, who had represented House District 57 for 10 years.

Her victory makes her the first African American elected to represent the district, which includes portions of Marion, Horry and Williamsburg counties.

Atkinson switched from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party in March, setting up a general election contest against Ford.

Ford said her victory was the result of a grassroots campaign built on teamwork, personal connections with voters and a commitment to running with integrity.

"Grassroots. Grassroots. There sere some things that we had to pull together. And it was a team effort. Going door to door, phone calls, all the grassroots efforts, the signs out. But, I was just so proud to be myself and to be able to run with integrity. That meant so much to me," Ford said.

Ford said Marion County holds a special place in her heart and that she has always wanted to give back to the community that helped shape her life.

Her election represents a significant change in the district's political leadership and a historic milestone for representation in the South Carolina Legislature.

Ford said she is looking forward to serving the people who placed their trust in her.

In another historic victory, McGill defeated Republican Ryan White to become the first African American elected 12th Circuit solicitor.

McGill will succeed longtime Solicitor Ed Clements, who did not seek re-election after serving seven terms.

The 12th Circuit Solicitor's Office prosecutes criminal cases in Florence and Marion counties.

McGill's election will bring new leadership to the office for the first time in more than two decades.

She shared the following statement on her campaign's Facebook page:

"Humbled, honored, and beyond grateful! THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU to everyone who believed in me, supported me, prayed for me, and cast your vote to elect me as your 12th Circuit Solicitor!

I do not take your trust and confidence lightly. I am committed to serving Marion and Florence Counties with integrity, fairness, and compassion. This victory belongs to ALL of us! God is faithful!

Our community is the heart of everything we do. This is about more than winning an election. It’s about building trust, strengthening neighborhoods, protecting families, supporting victims, and ensuring that every person in Marion and Florence Counties knows their voice matters.

I am not just here to serve as your Solicitor. I am here to serve WITH you, stand FOR you, and work alongside you to build safer, stronger communities for generations to come.

Together, we move forward. Together, we make a difference. And together, we will build a legacy of justice, service, and hope! From the bottom of my heart, THANK YOU! The work begins with ALL of us! Leadership with Integrity!"

The victories mark a significant moment in Pee Dee politics, with both women overcoming political challenges to win offices that had never before been held by African Americans.

Black Political Power and the ‘Blue Wave’

Black candidates made historic gains in the 2026 midterm elections, winning governorships, Senate seats and positions of influence across the country.

Dedrick Asante-Muhammad

On Nov.3, Democrats won control of both the House and the Senate in their strongest showing in nearly two decades. A less publicized story is what the election did for Black political power. Voters expanded that power at nearly every level, even after the Supreme Court's weakening of the Voting Rights Act.

Start with the governors' mansions. Keisha Lance Bottoms won Georgia and became the first Black woman ever elected governor of any state. Byron Donalds won Florida and became the state's first Black governor and the first Black Republican elected governor anywhere. David Crowley became Wisconsin's first Black governor. Aaron Ford unseated an incumbent to become Nevada's first. Wes Moore was re-elected in Maryland. Before Tuesday, only three African Americans had ever been elected governor, and none served at the same time. In one night, voters more than doubled that number. In January, five will serve together.

In the Senate, Juliana Stratton won in Illinois, becoming the fifth Black woman ever elected to that chamber. Cory Booker was re-elected in New Jersey. The Senate will now have at least a record six Black members, including, for the first time, three Black women serving at once. In Mississippi, Scott Colom's race is still too close to call. If he wins, he would be the state's first Black senator since Reconstruction, and the number would rise to seven. Five of the six African American senators will serve in the majority.

These gains matter more because of how hard they were to win.

Black Americans first entered Congress during Reconstruction, when Joseph Rainey of South Carolina was seated in 1870. Attacks on African American voting rights stripped Black voters of the ballot, and Black lawmakers were pushed out with them. When George White of North Carolina left the House in 1901, he called it "the Negroes' temporary farewell to the American Congress" and promised that, "Phoenix-like, he will rise up some day and come again." No Black member served again until Oscar De Priest of Chicago in 1929 almost 30 years later, who was elected with the help of the Great Migration. In the South, the wait lasted more than 70 years, until the Voting Rights Act of 1965 made possible the 1972 elections of Barbara Jordan and Andrew Young.

By 2025, Black members held about 14 percent of House seats, roughly matching the Black share of the population. Then, in Louisiana v. Callais, the Supreme Court weakened Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, and several states quickly redrew their maps. In Louisiana, Rep. Cleo Fields's district went from majority Black to roughly one-quarter Black, and he chose not to run. In Texas, Rep. Al Green's district was redrawn into a Republican seat. In Tennessee, the historically majority-Black Memphis district was redrawn, and Justin Pearson lost there on Tuesday.

Those losses are real, and they are a direct result of the Court's ruling. But they are far smaller than many feared. Instead, Black voters turned out in force. In Alabama, legislators cut the Black voting-age population of Rep. Shomari Figures's district from nearly 48 percent to about 40 percent. He won anyway, by nearly eight points. In North Carolina, Rep. Don Davis held a district Republicans had redrawn to flip. In Georgia, Black voters cast about 30 percent of early votes in a record midterm turnout.

A new generation of Black members also won: Jasmine Clark in Georgia, Oliver Gilbert in Florida, Frederick Douglas Haynes III in Dallas, Donna Miller and La Shawn Ford in Illinois, Adrian Boafo in Maryland and Melat Kiros in Colorado. Veterans including Bennie Thompson, James Clyburn, Terri Sewell and Alma Adams were re-elected. The net result appears to be a loss of about five House seats with four losses stemming from Black Republicans not running for their former seat.

Just as important, Black members will now serve in the majority in both chambers, and that is where power sits in Congress. Hakeem Jeffries, re-elected Tuesday, is positioned to become the first Black Speaker in the House's 237-year history. Senior Black members are in line to chair some of the House's most powerful committees: Bennie Thompson on Homeland Security, Gregory Meeks on Foreign Affairs, Maxine Waters on Financial Services and Bobby Scott on Education and the Workforce. Chairs set hearings, issue subpoenas, decide which bills move and shape who is hired to write them. Joint Center research shows that Black committee leaders are far more likely to hire Black senior staff, so the gains reach deeper into the institution.

A Congressional Black Caucus that holds the Speaker's gavel and key committee chairs can wield more influence than a larger caucus in the minority. In 2025, a record-size caucus had little power to set the agenda. In 2027, a slightly smaller one may have the most power in its history. When Democrats last won back the House in 2006, the Joint Center wrote that the caucus was likely to have more influence in the next Congress than "at any time in its history." The 120th Congress should match or surpass that moment.

None of this means the threat has passed. The Court's ruling stands. Maps drawn under it remain in force, and future redistricting could go further. Six to seven Black senators is a record, but it is only 6 to 7 percent of the chamber. Progress built on turnout alone is fragile.

A new Democratic Congress built in large part on Black votes should use its power to make these gains last, and with both chambers in hand, there is no excuse for delay. That means passing a John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act rewritten for the post-Callais era. It means restoring federal review of discriminatory maps and banning the partisan gerrymanders the Court now allows states to use as cover for diluting Black votes. It means making sure Black members hold real power in committee chairs and leadership. It means Black staff are appointed throughout all Congressional offices at the highest levels. It also means that economic policy must be rapidly enacted to address the concerns of all American voters and bridge the racial economic divide in particular.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the writer and not necessarily those of the AFRO.

Black Women Did the Work. The 2026 Midterms Show It

November 6, 2026

by Glynda C. Carr

Long before the networks called a single race on Tuesday night, Black women had already done the work. We knocked on doors, made one more round of calls, hosted gatherings in our living rooms and fellowship halls, and drove our mothers, neighbors and line sisters to the polls.

That was not a given. Coming out of 2024, many Black women were tired of carrying the country and being thanked with silence. Plenty of us were ready to let somebody else do it this time. At Higher Heights, we spent 2025 and early 2026 meeting that fatigue head-on.

Then the tide turned, and it turned fast. Rent and grocery bills kept climbing. Health care got harder to afford. Lawmakers redrew maps to shrink the power of Black voters. This fall, more than nine in 10 Black women told pollsters they were dissatisfied with the direction of the country, yet 87% said they were still motivated to vote. We turned that frustration into turnout. Reports from Mississippi described Black turnout heavy enough to overwhelm polling places, and exit polls show 93% of Black women backed Democratic House candidates.

The results followed. In Georgia, Keisha Lance Bottoms became the first Black woman in the nation’s history elected to lead a state. Higher Heights was with her on her first run for Atlanta mayor, and her win belongs to every Black woman ever told to wait her turn. In the U.S. Virgin Islands, Stacey Plaskett won the governorship, a reminder that Black women’s leadership stretches across the Diaspora.

In Illinois, Julianna Stratton won a U.S. Senate seat. With Sens. Angela Alsobrooks and Lisa Blunt Rochester, she will make three Black women serving in the Senate at once, a first. Down the ballot, Black women won races for attorney general, secretary of state,

Now comes the part that rarely makes the news. Winning is one thing. Governing is another. Black women in power face sharper scrutiny, more personal attacks and a thinner margin for error than anyone else in the room. Governor-elect Bottoms, Governor-elect Plaskett and every woman sworn in this January will need more than our votes.

They will need us to keep showing up: paying attention after the cameras leave, defending them when the attacks come and holding them accountable to the communities that sent them.

It also means investing in Black women early, long before the polls say they can win. Too often, money and support arrive only after a Black woman has proven herself, if they arrive at all.

Look at Angie Nixon in Florida. There were many who backed her primary opponent, who outspent her 16 to 1. She won by more than 10 points anyway. On Tuesday, she came within three points of becoming Florida’s first Black U.S. senator, in a state many had written off. Imagine that race with real investment from day one.

Angie Nixon’s campaign was not a loss. It was a building block. She organized voters across Florida and built a network that will outlast this cycle, just as Keisha Lance Bottoms’ road to the governor’s office began with a mayoral race years ago. That is how Black women build power: brick by brick, race by race.

It took 250 years to lay the foundation for this moment. With every brick we lay now, the next one will come far sooner.

To every Black woman who ran, organized, gave and voted: thank you. This win is yours. Let’s protect it, and let’s build on it.

Source: Published without changes from Washington Informer Newspaper