Tanya Mosley

Graham is a staff writer at The Atlantic and author of The Atlantic Daily Newsletter.

He's also the author of The Project, How Project 2025 is Reshaping America.

David Graham, welcome back to Fresh Air.

First off, your reaction to this week's victories for the Democrats.

Well, President Trump has said on Truth Social as the results came in that the losses were because he wasn't on the ballot.

Your reporting suggests the big question isn't can Democrats win, but whether they'll be allowed to win in 2026 as we look towards the midterms.

What should Americans understand about the difference between Tuesday's results and what you're warning could happen in the midterms?

You know, what happened with California Prop 50 was in response to what happened in Texas, where Texas Governor Greg Abbott did the exact same thing, called a special session to redraw maps to grab five GOP seats.

What are we seeing in GOP-led states?

Is this also something that is being pushed for to redraw those maps?

And we're just talking about a handful of seats.

So there's a lot at stake for both sides.

This week, anecdotally, we've seen reporting of lines wrapped around the corner for this special election.

People seem to come out to vote.

We were also forewarned that the Justice Department would be sending election monitors to a handful of polling places in California and New Jersey.

And there was reporting that some folks saw those monitors.

Have you heard word of what happened with those monitors?

And also, can you kind of talk about why—

Particularly having monitors come to this type of election cycle is so unusual.

Your piece actually starts off with this made-up but very specific scenario set a year from now on Election Day in Maricopa County in Arizona.