Good morning. I’m Corinne Straight, and this is AlterNet America. Please take a moment to click the ❤️ and restack this post. The oligarchs’ platforms are trying to keep stories like the ones below from hitting your feeds, and this helps us break through.
Our stories for you this morning are, again, all positive. We’re not even trying to do that – the news is just that good! Democrats won enough state-level seats to make the Electoral College obsolete. The GOP’s mid-decade gerrymander backfired so badly that they lost seats they already held. An Iowa Democrat won his state House race after he dropped out in September. And Texas is ready to expand Medicaid to more than a million uninsured residents.
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Al Gore has been waiting 26 years for this news.
Democrats control enough state governments to trigger an interstate pact that would award the presidency to whoever wins the popular vote. The compact needs states representing 270 electoral votes to go into effect, and Tuesday’s results put it within reach for the first time.
The compact is an agreement between states to give their electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote. Nineteen states, representing 222 electoral votes, had already signed on before Democrats took full control of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Arizona, Wisconsin, and Nevada this week. If all five states join the compact, the total climbs to 283 electoral votes, surpassing the 270 needed to win the presidency.
There’s no guarantee those states actually pass the compact. Michigan Democrats didn’t do it when they had full control of state government from 2023 to 2024, and Nevada’s Democratic governor vetoed it in 2019.
The Constitution also requires congressional approval for interstate compacts, and Senate Republicans could filibuster the measure. Even with control of both chambers of Congress, Democrats don’t have the 60 votes to overcome a filibuster.
This is what happens when you let the people who brought you the Iran war do geography.
Republican state legislatures redrew their congressional maps at Trump’s request before the midterms, spreading their voters across more districts to maximize the number of seats they could win. The strategy thinned their margins so much that Democrats won most of the redrawn districts, and even unseated neighboring incumbents.
In Texas, Republicans redrew five Democratic-held seats to favor the GOP by at least 10 percentage points. By late Tuesday night, Democrats had won four of those seats. Democrat Bobby Pulido also defeated incumbent Rep. Monica De La Cruz in the 15th Congressional District, a seat Republicans held before redistricting.
In North Carolina, Republicans redrew the 1st Congressional District in hopes of flipping it from Democratic control for the first time since the 1880s. The redrawn lines should have given Trump a 10-point advantage in the district too, but Democrat Don Davis beat Republican Laurie Buckhout anyway.
Missouri voters rejected Proposition A, a referendum that would have approved a gerrymandered congressional map passed by Republican lawmakers in 2025 at Trump’s urging. The map had already been blocked by the Missouri Supreme Court in a unanimous ruling, and the U.S. Supreme Court rejected three separate Republican attempts to bring it back.
In case you’re wondering just how bad Tuesday was for the GOP, Iowa voters decided they would rather elect a guy who dropped out than a Republican.
An Iowa state House candidate who suspended his campaign in September for health reasons was elected Tuesday with 55 percent of the vote. Eric Armstrong beat Republican Keith Jones despite not campaigning for the last two months of the race.
Armstrong, a retired railroad executive, launched his campaign in February in Iowa’s 20th House District, a red-leaning seat in Pottawattamie County that includes parts of Council Bluffs and Carter Lake. He withdrew from the race September 7, writing on Facebook that it was “a deeply difficult choice” but he needed to focus on his health.
Armstrong has not publicly disclosed what health issues he has been dealing with, and most Iowa Democrats had expected him to lose after he withdrew. He told The New York Times Wednesday morning he plans to do his best to represent the district.
Armstrong’s victory was not a flip, as the seat was previously held by Democrat Josh Turek. Turek had his own win Tuesday, defeating Republican Ashley Hinson in the state’s U.S. Senate race.
If only someone could’ve done something about this sooner. Oh, wait.
Democrat Gina Hinojosa’s win in the Texas governor’s race opens the door to Medicaid expansion for the first time since the Affordable Care Act made it available in 2010. Republicans have refused to expand the program for more than ten years, leaving the state with the highest uninsured rate in the nation.
Democrats also won control of the Texas House for the first time in more than 20 years. Advocacy groups expect Medicaid expansion bills to be filed November 9, the first day for early bill filing in the state legislature.
Republicans still control the Texas state Senate, meaning they could block expansion legislation. Texas hospitals have spent years lobbying senators, warning that federal Medicaid cuts will force rural facilities to close.
The expansion would make an estimated 1.1 million Texans eligible for coverage, including 605,000 who now have no other insurance options. Polls show a majority of Texas voters support the policy, but now-ousted Gov. Greg Abbott refused to pursue it.
This week happened because millions of people refused to be told what to think by billionaires trying to buy an election. Independent media played a role in that. We told you about the Epstein coverup, the deportation abuses, and the corruption that the mainstream media tried to bury.
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Texas Attorney General-Elect Says He Will Stop Suing Doctors Who Mail Abortion Pills. Texas Attorney General-elect Nathan Johnson says he will not continue Ken Paxton’s practice of suing out-of-state doctors who send abortion medication to patients in Texas. Johnson told The Texas Tribune that he will stop using abortion laws for what he called political showboating and intimidation. Governor-elect Gina Hinojosa can’t repeal the state’s near-total ban on abortion on her own, but she could change how the law is enforced by appointing new members to the Texas Medical Board and shifting funding away from programs that counsel pregnant women not to have abortions.
Federal Judge Temporarily Blocks Trump’s Plan to Deport Detained Afghans to Pakistan. A federal judge Tuesday issued a temporary order blocking the Trump administration from deporting detained Afghan nationals to Pakistan, after advocates and 66 members of Congress warned they could face torture or death. More than 80 Afghans contacted advocates after getting deportation notices, including women, a police officer, members of religious minorities, and people whose family members served in the U.S. military. Most have fled Afghanistan because of Taliban persecution and do not have legal representation. The order expires Saturday.
Federal Judge Orders Iowa to Let Satanic Temple Hold Holiday Event at State Capitol. After years of denials by Republican officials, a federal judge has ordered Iowa state officials to approve the Satanic Temple’s application for a holiday event in the state capitol rotunda. The group, which describes itself as non-theistic and uses Satan as a symbol to oppose religious authoritarianism, suggested an event that would feature caroling, ornament making, and costumes of the European folklore character Krampus. Iowa Republicans said the group’s application was denied because of policies against violence and obscene displays, but the judge ruled those arguments did not hold up and that the group was likely to win its free speech claim.
** Cash Payments to Pregnant Families in Flint, Michigan Cut Newborn Deaths by Half. **A new study in JAMA Pediatrics found that newborn deaths in Flint, Michigan dropped by 50 percent after the launch of Rx Kids, a program that gives $1,500 during pregnancy and $500 per month during infancy to families in the city. Deaths in the first seven days of life dropped 74 percent. Before the program was launched, Flint’s neonatal mortality rate was more than double the rate for the rest of Michigan, and the gap has now closed to the point where the difference is no longer statistically significant. The results build on previous findings that Rx Kids also led to an 18 percent reduction in preterm births, a 27 percent reduction in low birth weight, and a 29 percent reduction in neonatal intensive care unit admissions.