This story appeared in The Logoff, a daily newsletter that helps you stay informed about the Trump administration without letting political news take over your life. Subscribe here.

Welcome to The Logoff: The Trump administration is planning a public killing. 

What’s happening? On Thursday, the Pentagon announced that it would execute Nidal Hasan, a former Army major sentenced to death for a 2009 mass shooting on a military base, publicly and on livestream. 

The execution, if it happens, would be unprecedented: The last widely reported public execution in the US was 90 years ago, in Kentucky, but to stream a death live would be something else entirely. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has promoted the announcement with something approaching glee, telling a reporter that “we’ll make sure that people are able to watch it.”

What’s the context? According to the Pentagon, Hasan will be executed via firing squad on December 3 — the first such execution by the military in more than 80 years.

Hasan, a former Army psychiatrist, was sentenced to death in 2013 by a military jury following a court-martial for the 2009 shooting, when he killed 13 people and wounded more than 30 at Fort Hood in Texas. The execution is set to be carried out at the same Army post.

Will the Pentagon go through with this? It’s unclear, for multiple reasons. The Pentagon’s announcement that Hasan’s death will be livestreamed has generated a great deal of bipartisan pushback, as well as condemnation by religious groups, though that is unlikely to stop the execution itself. 

The head of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops decried the decision to livestream the execution as “a barbaric promotion of a culture of death,” and retiring Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) called it the decision “beyond disgusting.” 

“Public executions are what oppressive dictatorships like Iran and Afghanistan do,” Tillis wrote in a post on X. 

On Friday, Vice President JD Vance also said that he was unsure if the livestream would take place. 

Hasan’s legal team could also delay the execution substantially — potentially for multiple years — by challenging his detention in federal court, though he has exhausted the military appeals process.

And with that, it’s time to log off…

The driest (non-polar) desert in the world, the Atacama in South America, was in full bloom late last month after record-setting rainfall. You can read more about the science behind the wildflowers here, or just enjoy some spectacular photos here (it’s a gift link). Either way, I hope it brings you some joy. 

The Logoff will be off on Monday for Indigenous Peoples’ Day, so we’ll see you back here on Tuesday. Have a good long weekend! 

This story appeared in Today, Explained, a daily newsletter that helps you understand the most compelling news and stories of the day. Subscribe here.

As far as political slurs go, this one is pretty tepid: “Meet Data Center Dave Crowley,” intones the stern-voiced narrator of a recent Tom Tiffany campaign ad. 

Tiffany, a Republican, and Crowley, a Democrat, are both running for governor of Wisconsin. And in this very tight race, as in dozens of midterm contests across the country, voters’ growing animus toward AI could potentially make a real difference.

In less than four weeks, Americans will head to the polls to decide which party controls Congress, along with a slew of state and local offices. The stakes are arguably, unusually high: Voters will choose whether to check the power of a president who has bulldozed over historical limits and launched an unpopular war that has worsened a cost-of-living crisis.

As we count down to that momentous and potentially messy day, I’m partnering with my colleague Astead Herndon and Vox’s The Midterms, Actually team for weekly editions on the biggest issues shaping the midterms. We’re breaking down one issue each week and suggesting further reading and races to watch in November.

Last week, we tackled the dual identity crises that both parties have suffered since 2024. And this week, we’re digging into the dramatic bipartisan backlash to AI and data centers. One analyst recently told NPR the issue “upended politics as we know it.” But it’s less clear how that’ll play out in November’s contests.

Go a little deeper

There was a time not so long ago when “Data Center Dave” might be a neutral nickname for the well-meaning IT guy at work. Then Americans soured on AI and the hulking, cavernous warehouses that supply its computing power. 

The hostility crosses geography and party lines. At first, opponents focused on noise, water use, and energy costs — quality-of-life concerns for nearby residents. But increasingly, even voters far from these projects grew leery of them.

Too often, the public got little say in where data centers were built and on what terms. And as Vox’s Marina Bolotnikova reported over the summer, the construction boom gradually became a stand-in for broader fears about artificial intelligence. Would AI cause mass unemployment (…or worse, mass extinction)? Would it widen the gap between rich and poor? And do politicians cater to business interests over the needs of ordinary people? 

Without clear answers to those questions — let alone a rigorous plan to address AI’s fallout — many voters channeled their unease into stopping, or slowing, data center development. 

Candidates have reacted by “falling over themselves to sound tough on data centers,” Washington Post data reporter Jeremy Merrill recently told Vox’s Noel King. He analyzed thousands of social media posts and newsletters to see how elected officials are talking about data centers, and the answer is: not positively! 

Some candidates in high-profile midterm races have backed policies that would keep data centers from raising household energy bills. Others have called for ending the facilities’ tax breaks and subsidies or requiring public notice before new construction. Strikingly, both Republicans and Democrats have supported these types of proposals … and both Republicans and Democrats have sought to tar their opponents as “Data Center Daves” of one kind or another.

I asked my colleague Andrew Prokop, who covers politics, if many races will actually turn on this. “Data centers have been a major theme in several races, particularly governor’s races where one of the candidates has taken past pro-data center positions,” he said.

But even when voters say they oppose data centers, very few list the issue among the most important concerns determining how they cast their ballots. In Ohio, for instance — a hub for both data-center development and the grassroots movement opposing it — only 3 percent of voters named data centers as the top issue driving their vote. And that’s the highest share in the entire nation. 

Andrew points to the Democratic gubernatorial primary in Wisconsin, where “Data Center Dave” triumphed over Francesca Hong, an outspoken data center critic. “That just goes to show that data centers don’t necessarily crowd out everything else,” Andrew said.

Still…that’s just one race. And voters’ hatred of data centers has only grown since.

➨  Races to watch:

• Wisconsin governor’s race, where both candidates have attempted to distance themselves from data centers without embracing an actual ban;
• Texas governor’s race, where Republican Governor Greg Abbott has hastily retreated from his previous, pro-data-center position;
• Ohio Senate race, where Democrat Sherrod Brown has hammered incumbent Republican Jon Husted over his past votes for data center development. 

➨  More from Vox: 

• Data centers could actually be good for your hometown
• Americans don’t know how to fight AI. So they’re fighting data centers.
• The real reason voters hate data centers so much

One link for later

➨ Get better at being alone with your thoughts. According to one oft-cited study from 2014, many people would rather give themselves electric shocks than spend a few minutes alone with nothing to do. But being alone with your thoughts is good for you! You can practice by making a list of topics to ponder and parking your phone in another room. Then see what kind of cogitation surfaces for you. 

Before you go…

• Did you know…that there are more than 96 bags of human waste on the moon? Astronauts with the Apollo missions left them there more than 50 years ago.
• Today’s trivia: Which fruit kills more people than sharks each year, according to urban legend? (You can find this and other brain puzzles in Vox’s daily crossword. Look for the answer in tomorrow’s edition.)
• Yesterday’s trivia: Yesterday we asked you the word for a baby eagle. That would be eaglet, and they are adorable.  

Welcome to The Midterms, Actually. Every week I’ll be writing about two things: one big idea or trend I see forming across the 2026 primaries, and one thing I’m hearing from a voice on the ground. You can sign up here to get it in your inbox every week. Let’s get into it.

One big idea: Black Democrats are facing a crossroads

One thing I’m thinking: A party that once said “representation matters” is watching Black power recede — and two of my recent interviews show the fork in the road.

The civil war roiling the Democratic Party has typically been defined by ideological camps. Moderates vs. progressives. Establishment vs. DSA. But ahead of a wide-open presidential primary, where the party hopes to define who and what it’s fighting for, there are other fault lines as well.

A big one: Where does the party’s changing electorate leave its traditional bases of power — like Black voters and the elected officials who represent them? 

Black voters have been one of the most reliable Democratic constituencies for generations, and their elected officials, at least, have enjoyed the perks of access. Looking back, there’s an argument that the Black Democratic class had more voice in the Joe Biden version of the Democratic Party than in the years of Barack Obama. Biden had long maintained close relationships with Washington’s Black elected officials, going back to his decades representing Delaware. And in the wake of the outcry for racial justice that came after the murder of George Floyd, and the important role Black voters played in his primary campaign, Biden made clear that focus would follow him into the presidency.

“When this campaign was at its lowest ebb, the African American community stood up again for me,” I watched President-elect Biden tell a crowd soon after he was elected. “You’ve always had my back, and I’ll have yours.”

Biden followed up by prioritizing Black representation in his administration: He nominated Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court, fulfilling the promise he made to James Clyburn ahead of his all-important endorsement in 2020. He installed Jaime Harrison, another Clyburn mentee, as DNC chair, and made Karine Jean-Pierre the first Black and openly LGBTQ+ person to serve as White House press secretary. There was Lloyd Austin, the first Black man to run the Defense Department. And of course, there was Kamala Harris — the first Black and South Asian vice president and leader-of-the-Democratic-Party-in-waiting.

Importantly, Black elected officials were winning outside of Washington, too. As Politico noted in 2022, the Biden years marked the first time that New York City, Houston, Chicago, and Los Angeles — America’s four most populous cities — all had elected Black mayors.

But fast-forward to now, and it’s all gone a bit bleak. The John Lewis Voting Rights Act, a core Biden-Harris promise, never materialized. Harris lost to Trump in the 2024 election. And Democrats have broadly backlashed against any explicit focus on Black racial politics. Two of those mayors (Eric Adams of New York City and Lori Lightfoot of Chicago) were bounced after one term. Houston elected a white mayor, John Whitmire, who defeated Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, a longtime member of the Congressional Black Caucus. And this November, Mayor Karen Bass of Los Angeles is at risk of becoming the latest political casualty, as she faces a tough race from an insurgent Democratic socialist, City Council member Nithya Raman.

To make matters worse, the Supreme Court’s decision in Louisiana v. Callais may put as many as 19 members of the Congressional Black Caucus — nearly a third of the caucus — at risk of losing their seats, with a particular impact on the American South. And the current energy in the Democratic Party has come from its progressive left, which has found a winning formula for winning in primaries that essentially goes around Black voters — as seen in races like Zohran Mamdani’s win in New York City, or even James Talarico’s defeat of Jasmine Crockett in Texas.

I could go on. But here’s the point: Just a few short years after Democrats declared that “representation matters,” the Black elected officials who benefitted from that priority have largely receded into the background, and it reflects the larger crossroads facing many Black Democrats in a changing party. On one side, the choice is a failed establishment that historically made space for (some) Black causes; on the other is a progressive wing that is often working from a deficit of trust, with little history in Black communities and connection with Black political leaders. 

Earlier this year, two interviews on America, Actually showed the divergent paths. One with Rep. Jim Clyburn of South Carolina. The other with Angie Nixon, the Democratic nominee for the US Senate seat in Florida. 

The power broker

If you haven’t watched my interview with Clyburn, I’d encourage you to — because the anguish on my face is pretty palpable throughout the whole thing.

It made news because of what Clyburn said (or didn’t) about artificial intelligence, but the conversation on Black politics is what most stuck with me. The Congress member explicitly blamed Black voters for Kamala Harris’s 2024 loss, saying they let her and the party down — not the other way around:

Me: “So is the argument that Black people let Kamala Harris down?”

Clyburn: “In many instances, absolutely…if that 59 percent had been 69 percent, she would’ve won.”

He defended taking corporate dollars even as polling says most Democrats, including Black voters, wish their politicians did not. And when I asked about his two most notable endorsements since the 2024 election: supporting Andrew Cuomo against Mamdani in New York City’s mayoral race, and backing Haley Stevens against Abdul El-Sayed in the Michigan Senate race — here’s what he said:

So I’m supposed to throw away all these relationships for somebody I never saw before, never heard of before…come on. Why don’t they just get off of that?

At one point, I asked Clyburn whether Mamdani’s enduring popularity, including among Black New Yorkers, caused any reflection: “Oh, I’m not paying attention to that. I got 90 percent. I just ran for reelection. I got 90 percent.”

Clyburn didn’t just defend centrist ideology. He defended a way of politics that was fundamentally unresponsive to voters, and he plainly articulated the lack of accountability at the heart of establishment politics: We didn’t fail, the voters failed us. 

But importantly, Clyburn’s policy positions — and those of the larger Congressional Black Caucus — are increasingly out of step with public opinion. Voters, including Black ones, want corporate money out of politics. And like much of the Democratic base, Black voters have also shifted left on Israel and are skeptical of things like Big Tech. Meanwhile, CBC members like Crockett are awash in crypto-industry money — from the likes of Marc Andreessen and the Winklevoss twins. At the CBC’s recent legislative conference, one of the “top sponsors” was Palantir Technologies — the data firm with major ICE contracts — even as the Congressional Hispanic Caucus canceled its financial relationship with the group. 

Black Democrats have never lived in a world where corporate cash was this unpopular, anti-Israel sentiment was this high, and their relationship with Big Tech was so under scrutiny. And in talking to Clyburn, I felt that distance. 

The upstart

Contrast that to Angie Nixon, the Democratic nominee for the US Senate in Florida. 

After Nixon won her primary — a 12-point victory (56-44) against a candidate who outraised her roughly 17-to-1 — all the focus went to why she couldn’t win the general election. She became a DSA member this year, making it easy for Republicans to tag her as a socialist (she says she’s not). There was her pro-Palestinian advocacy. Her lack of fundraising. And Democratic commentators used that to write her off on primary night, before the candidate had any chance to introduce herself to the general public. 

However, since the primary, Nixon has seemingly won those same people over — through what feels like sheer force of personality. She’s gained kudos from the commentariat with viral tweets aimed at Republicans, Emily’s List, which stayed neutral in the primary, has endorsed her, and progressives led by Bernie Sanders have begun steering real money into the race. Most importantly, she has taken advantage of the new media environment, doing interview after interview in a Mamdani-style blitz that prioritizes authenticity over polish:

“As a former single mom for 12 years, I know how to make a dollar stretch,” she told me, explaining her victory against long odds. “And clearly I know how to make one stretch to like 18.”

This is not to say Nixon is going to win — because I don’t think that’s the point. At a time when so many Black Democrats are trying to figure out where they fit in the party’s changing landscape, she represents an important lesson in how to blend personality with policy. The reason Nixon can be so “authentic” is that she’s clearly not thinking about how to calibrate to appease donors. She’s not thinking about whether her honesty upsets party leaders. Her distance from corporate money, or the party’s pro-Israel wing, has afforded her a freedom many Black politicians do not have. She is leading with Angie Nixon. Not Palantir. Or the DSA.

It’s essentially the opposite of what Clyburn did — not blaming the voters, but blaming the structures that have historically oppressed black communities. Which would of course also include the Democratic Party and its corporate donors. 

“I am a team player when you are playing for the team of hardworking people,” Nixon told me. “But when you start playing for corporations, I can’t get down like that.”

Looking ahead to 2028, there are several Black Democrats priming to run for president — including Harris, Sen. Cory Booker, and Maryland Gov. Wes Moore. Each will likely try to stake a middle ground between the Clyburns of the world and the Angie Nixons, and with South Carolina set to go first in the Democrats’ presidential nominating calendar, it would seem each would have a distinct advantage heading into the primary. However, even as Black voters were a key part of Hillary Clinton’s win in 2016, and Biden’s primary win in 2020, I don’t think we can assume this is a boon for centrists and establishment candidates.   

As I wrote earlier this summer, the Black electorate has historically moved in unison, but there is no guarantee that continues — particularly if Harris does not run again. For one, South Carolina going first in the primary may diminish its predictive power, since it’s further away from Super Tuesday. And most importantly, the electorate has changed. There’s now a rising generation of Black millennials — less committed to traditional party politics and less defined by the civil rights movement — and growing in number.

TL;DR: Democrats have long said Black voters aren’t a monolith. I think they’re about to learn what that means.

One thing I’m hearing 

This week we connected with Ryan Oehrli, a statewide accountability reporter at NC Local who has been covering election security in that state, and the state’s all-important Senate election. I wanted to ask him how state officials are dealing with election security concerns, and what he’s hearing from North Carolina voters on the ground.

You reported that some North Carolina election officials have promoted conspiracy theories about the elections they’re now helping run. How did these people get into those positions, and how much power do they have?

In North Carolina, the state board of elections appoints two Republicans and two Democrats to county election boards every other year. 

Chairs are the tie-breakers, so to speak. Historically, the governor appointed those chairs. In 2024, though, our Republican-led General Assembly stripped Gov. Josh Stein, a Democrat, of that power and gave it to State Auditor Dave Boliek, a Republican. Under the new law, every election board in the state flipped from Democratic to Republican control in one fell swoop in 2025.

One person I reported on was a “voter integrity” activist long before he was appointed to his county’s election board last year. Others were already serving on boards, then appointed chair by the state auditor even after they promoted conspiracy theories — in one instance by alleging in an email to lawmakers that there was some widespread effort to undermine the 2024 elections and help Democrats.

These are important positions. County election boards investigate ballot irregularities, decide where polling places are, conduct election protest hearings, and much more. 

You covered an effort in Lee County to eliminate Sunday voting. What have you seen these officials actually change, or try to change, about how people vote, and how have communities responded?

From what I can tell, the people we wrote about haven’t had much of an effect individually, at least so far.

A chair who once called on President Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act because of the 2020 election results told me he’s found “no proof” of widespread voter fraud in his own county. 

The “voter integrity” activist I mentioned above, Jay DeLancy, told me that he’s tried to cut some names from voter rolls in his county (he claims they are “duplicates”). But the usual guardrails have stopped him. He complained that too many lawyers were involved in the process.

DeLancy did play a part in the effort to eliminate Sunday voting in Lee County. When he made his case to the state board, one of his arguments was that it would be wrong to order election workers to violate the Fourth Commandment, to keep the sabbath, “all because of politics.” The state board did not side with him.

Beyond the people we reported on, the ones who have promoted conspiracy theories, there was more controversy this year as counties drafted their early voting plans. These plans have to be agreed to unanimously, or they get passed on to the state. It emerged that an employee of the state auditor’s office, who was also the former director of the North Carolina GOP, had been texting Republican county election board members and telling them what positions to take on early voting plans.

DeLancy acknowledged that he got the idea to eliminate Sunday voting from him.

Beyond the fights over how elections are run, what are you hearing from people in North Carolina about this year’s midterms? What issues are coming up most in your reporting?

Across party lines, it’s agreed that Hurricane Helene recovery has not been handled well. You can see this in the Senate race between Roy Cooper and Michael Whatley. Whatley blames Cooper, who was governor when Helene hit in September 2024, a few months before his term ended. Cooper blames Whatley, who Trump once said would be “very much in charge” of the administration’s recovery effort and is on the FEMA Review Council.

The state has received less than half the money it requested from the federal government. This is a bipartisan, deeply felt source of frustration in the region. 

North Carolina gets a lot of attention as a battleground state. What does the national coverage miss about the politics you’re seeing locally?

North Carolinians are worried about the same issues as much of the country, like the cost of living, but the state has been through a lot on its own in the last few years. 

Hurricane Helene, of course, devastated much of the mountains, and recovery for some places will take years. The killing of Iryna Zarutska resparked a national conversation about mental health, the courts, and public safety. It’s largely been forgotten because it was overshadowed by what happened in Chicago and Minneapolis, but Border Patrol agents spent a week in Charlotte last year and arrested hundreds of people. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has stayed busy here.

Just recently, President Trump said North Carolina has become “one of the most violent and one of the worst” states in the country.

Politics here feel more nationalized than even a few years ago, and there’s a lot more attention on us. This is a big change, and I wonder what it means for both major parties, at the state level, in the long run.