TV News LIES

Tennessee’s Republican-dominated legislature passed redistricting maps on Thursday, eliminating the state’s one Democratic, Black-majority congressional district a week after the US supreme court effectively gutted a major section of the Voting Rights Act.

The move cracks Tennessee’s ninth congressional district, which covers Memphis, into three pieces, each of which contains almost exactly a third of the city’s Black voters. The new maps mean that all nine of Tennessee’s congressional districts are Republican-leaning.

The district had closely occupied the south-west corner of the state. Now three districts snake out from Memphis’ dense center, with two crossing the Tennessee River to reach Nashville’s suburbs 200 miles away.

“If Republican policies are so great, why are we changing the lines to rig elections?” asked Vincent Dixie, a state representative from Nashville, during debate on Thursday, pleading for Republicans to refrain. “Where is your humanity in this?”

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Federal authorities executed a search warrant on Wednesday morning at the offices of Virginia Senate President Pro Tempore L. Louise Lucas (D), a key player in the state’s congressional redistricting fight, as part of a corruption investigation, a source familiar with the matter confirmed to The Hill’s sister network NewsNation.

Multiple FBI vehicles were positioned outside Lucas’s office in Portsmouth, Virginia, according to Nexstar affiliate WAVY. The outlet also reported a law enforcement presence at a nearby cannabis store co-owned by Lucas.

A spokesperson for the FBI Norfolk field office told The Hill in a statement that agents were executing a “court-authorized federal search warrant” in Portsmouth but declined to provide further details.  

“There is no threat to public safety,” the spokesperson said. “This is an ongoing investigation and no further information is publicly available at this time.”

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Democrat Chedrick Greene has won a special state Senate election in Michigan, NBC News projects, ensuring his party will keep control of the closely divided chamber.

Greene, a Marine veteran and firefighter, defeated Republican Jason Tunney, a former prosecutor, in the special election to replace Democratic U.S. Rep. Kristen McDonald Rivet, who resigned from the state Senate after she was elected to Congress in 2024.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2026-election/democrats-keep-control-michigan-state-senate-special-election-win-rcna343690Greene’s victory means Democrats will hold a 20-18 majority in the Senate. Democrats also control the governorship in Michigan, a key battleground state, while Republicans have a 58-52 edge in the state House.

The result continues a special election trend during President Donald Trump’s second term of Democrats’ outperforming former Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential race.

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President Donald Trump’s costly White House ballroom continues to stir outrage after a newly released proposal confirmed that Senate Republicans are seeking $1 billion from taxpayers for the project — despite prior claims that construction would be privately funded.

The reconciliation package that Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, released on Monday focuses on federal law enforcement, border security and the ballroom — which the White House said last year would cost $200 million to build.

Critics on social media blasted the project’s inflating cost.

“The ballroom went from $200 million & privately funded, to $300 million, to $400 million and taxpayers cover some of it, to MAGA trying to silently jam through $1 BILLION, 100% of which is our tax money, for this ballroom,” wrote one X user. “WASTE, FRAUD, AND ABUSE.”

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It has been 20 years since the state last elected a Democrat as governor. And it has been even longer since a Democrat not named Sherrod Brown has won a second election to any nonjudicial statewide office.

But party leaders are daring to be optimistic in 2026, encouraged by polls that show their candidate for governor, physician Amy Acton, running close with newly official Republican nominee Vivek Ramaswamy. They also scored a recruiting win when Brown launched a comeback Senate bid. Brown won the Democratic nomination Tuesday to face Sen. Jon Husted, the Republican appointed to succeed Vice President JD Vance. Early polls foreshadow a close race in that contest, too.

“It just feels like Ohio is back,” said state Democratic Party Chair Kathleen Clyde, referring to years in wilderness when, except when Brown was on the ballot, both national parties retreated from what was once a fiercely contested battleground.

Alex Triantafilou, the Ohio GOP chair, acknowledged a tough political climate for Republicans this year. President Donald Trump’s job approval ratings have fallen to new lows as he takes the rap for an unpopular war in Iran and rising gas prices that have accelerated frustrations with the economy.

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President Donald Trump exacted revenge on Indiana Republican legislators who foiled his redistricting push last year in the state, successfully backing challengers who unseated five incumbents in Tuesday's primaries.

One other GOP state senator who faced a Trump-backed opponent was trailing in the vote, while another survived. The results underscore the influence Trump continues to wield over the Republican Party, even as his approval rating among Americans broadly sags amid rising gas prices and the Iran war.

Three of the incumbents who lost Tuesday were veterans of the Indiana Legislature. State Sen. Travis Holdman has served in the Senate since 2008 and is the third-most powerful Republican in the chamber. State Sen. Jim Buck, 80, has served as an Indiana lawmaker since 1994.

And state Sen. Greg Walker was set to retire last year after 20 years in the chamber, but reversed course amid the redistricting fight, where he notably broke down in tears speaking about his fear for the future of the party if the Legislature caved to Trump’s demands.

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