Latest / In Focus with Carolyn Hutcheson / Midterm Elections - TPR's In Focus - Oct. 30, 2026

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Midterm Elections - TPR's In Focus - Oct. 30, 2026 · In Focus with Carolyn Hutcheson

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  Support comes from the Rosa Parks Museum on Troy University's
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  Montgomery campus, located on the spot of Mrs.
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  Parks' historic 1955 arrest and featuring exhibits
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  that chronicle the history of the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
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  More information at troy.edu/rosaparks.
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  From Troy Public Radio, this is the News Wrap,
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  and I'm Carolyn Hutcheson. Todd Stacy, host of Alabama Public Television's
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  Capitol Journal, Journal discusses
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  the midterm election outlook, and a pre-Halloween
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  wild card has one city holding a black
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  cat roundup.
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  Welcome back, Todd. Actually, the big news is next week.
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  All anybody can talk about is the election, uh, the big election on Tuesday.
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  Hope everybody will get out to vote. I don't think I'm the only one that's
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  ready for it to all be over, ready for the ads to stop. This is
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  a big election. It's a midterm, so that means the president's not on the ballot.
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  Everything else Alabama is, from the governor,
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  the constitutional officers, every member of the legislature's on the ballot.
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  And of course, we have a huge congressional race right here in
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  the capital city, 2nd District to the Wiregrass and all the way
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  to the Florida and Georgia lines. It's actually one of the top races in the
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  country. You've got Republican Rep. Marcus trying to unseat Democrat Shamari
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  Figgures, especially in light of how they redrew that district to be more friendly
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  to Republicans. But this is a really tight race. One of the closest
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  watched in the country. So yeah, just a few days away, we'll all go to
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  vote and figure out where we stand. How much are these 2
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  candidates spending on ads? Well, we have this fun little tool called
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  AdImpact, and it allows you to track ad spending. And just in
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  that 2nd Congressional District race between the 2
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  candidates and all the PACs, the groups that are spending money,
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  $13 million combined as of today.
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  I've never seen in Alabama one congressional race have
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  that kind of spending. It also shows you just how important both parties really
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  want this seat. And we know that control of Congress, the majority
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  of Congress is up. It could very well depend on this seat.
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  And so it's a big one. But I also want to remind people of the
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  top of the ticket. We've got a big race for governor going on. Doug Jones
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  is obviously the Democratic nominee. He's made a lot of strides.
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  And really made this a competitive race with Tommy Tuberville, obviously the Republican.
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  In a normal year, Republicans would win by 20 points, but all
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  the polling we've seen shows a lot closer race. This is
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  not a foregone conclusion for Republicans anymore. It's going to be close.
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  Todd, are you comfortable predicting the turnout?
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  I hope it'll be higher than the primary. We had a pretty dismal
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  turnout in the primary and the primary runoffs. Typical midterms
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  would be in the mid-30s to 40s. Honestly speaking,
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  if we got into the 40s, that would be pretty good. Let's remind the
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  listeners that you yourself are going to be with Kyle
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  and me during the noon hour for In Focus on Election
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  Day. We are really grateful. Yeah, I'm looking forward to it.
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  Election Day is always busy, so I'll be happy to join you. I think it's
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  around noon. Maybe we'll have some word on the street about how things are
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  going. And I know you'll be on some other stations, so you will be busy.
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  Lots of election talk over that 36-hour period. Well,
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  give us a wild card. You know, it's Halloween tomorrow,
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  and the city in Spain had to
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  put restrictions on people going and adopting black
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  cats ahead of Halloween. I guess they want to be spooky or
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  whatever, and so they go to a shelter and adopt a black cat, maybe with
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  no intention to actually keep the cat, and that's pretty cruel. So the
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  city had to step in and say, hey, y'all quit coming in and adopting these
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  black cats if you're not going to actually want the pet. A little cruel,
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  but it's also funny that people would actually do something like that just as a
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  Halloween prop. Todd, before we run out of time, what's ahead
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  for the Capitol Journal viewers? Tonight I will be interviewing
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  Doug Jones and Tommy Tuberville. These are in-depth interviews, about 25
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  minutes each, at 7:30 on Alabama Public Television. We've also created
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  a website where you can see all of these interviews. The APT homepage,
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  aptv.org. Every single one of our candidate interviews
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  will help inform you as you go to the polls. We want folks to be
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  informed. Well, Todd, thanks so much for the news wrap. Thank you.
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  That was Todd Stacy, host of Alabama Public Television's
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  Capitol Journal. Thanks for joining us for In Focus,
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  which is a podcast wherever you get your podcasts,
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  and feel free to get in touch at infocus@troy.edu.
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  I'm Carolyn Hutcheson, and this is listener-supported Troy
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  Public Radio.