Political Junkie Ken Rudin never left public radio. His weekly podcast has your dose of political analysis. And in time for the midterms this year, he's put together a special program for radio audiences as well. Before you dig in to this program, remember that he'll be live in studio with us on 4 November for our election night coverage as we track returns around the state.
But in this program, he starts off with Republican Vin Weber and Democrat Anna Greenberg laying out what’s at stake on November 4th, and what it might mean for the final two years of the Obama presidency.
And we go back 50 years, to a critical moment in the conservative movement. It was the speech given in Los Angeles, by an actor named Ronald Reagan, on behalf of the presidential candidacy of Sen. Barry Goldwater. But Reagan spoke on issues near and dear to conservatives, from intrusive governments to fighting communism to protecting liberties. The speech alerted voters about Reagan, who two years later was elected governor of California in a landslide and by 1980, he unseated Jimmy Carter, the president of the United States.
And then we go into the specific races. Greg Giroux of Bloomberg Politics helps walk us through the key Senate battles at stake on Tuesday. After that, we head to the three dozen gubernatorial races on the ballot, shepherded by Reid Wilson of the Washington Post.