Welcome to Ballotpedia’s Weekly Brew. Each week, we’ll bring you a collection of the most-viewed stories from the Daily Brew, condensed, along with other content from across Ballotpedia that we think you’ll like.
Today’s Weekly Brew brings together content from the week of October 5 - October 9.
This week’s top stories
Here are the Daily Brew stories our subscribers clicked on most this week.
8% of officials named in recall efforts have been removed from office so far this year, lower than the 16-year average
Through Oct. 2, 35 officials have been removed from office in recall efforts nationwide this year. This amounts to 8% of the 437 elected officials named in recall efforts. That rate is lower than the 16% success rate Ballotpedia tracked from 2010 to 2025.
Michigan had the highest number of officials included in recall efforts since 2010, with 1,180. Those officials account for 19% of all recalls through Oct. 2. California had the second-highest with 1,115 (18%), and Colorado was third-highest with 413 (7%).
City council members had the most recall petitions filed against them, with 201. Mayors had 67, and school board members had 65.
Here's what to know about casting an absentee/mail-in ballot in the November election
As the Nov. 3 election approaches, election officials across the country are beginning to send absentee/mail-in ballots to voters. Laws governing the absentee/mail-in voting process vary from state to state. Click “Read more” for an overview of what those laws look like this year.
Homebuyer loan program for University of California staff is the first initiative to qualify for California’s 2028 ballot
A citizen initiative to establish a first-time homebuyer down payment loan program for University of California staff qualified for the Nov. 7, 2028, ballot in California. This is the first citizen initiative certified for the 2028 ballot in California. It joins two other measures that the state legislature put on the ballot. So far, a total of six statewide measures have been certified for the 2028 ballot nationwide.
The measure, sponsored by the AFSCME 3299, would create a program that would offer loans equal to 20% of the house's value for down payments for first-time homebuyers who have worked for the University of California system for at least five years.
On Oct. 2, the secretary of state reported the initiative qualified for the 2028 ballot after submitting 947,631 valid signatures. The deadline for withdrawing citizen initiatives from the 2028 ballot is June 29, 2028.
Republican incumbents lost primaries at twice the rate of Democrats in this year’s state legislative elections
Republican state legislators lost re-election in this year’s primaries at twice the rate of Democrats. Of the 2,737 Republicans who ran for re-election, 126 (4.6%) lost primaries. Of the 2,314 Democrats who ran, 54 (2.3%) did.
Where incumbents lost primaries most often
In five states, at least 10% of incumbents who ran for re-election lost in primaries this year:
- Wyoming: Fourteen of 54 incumbents who ran (25.9%) lost primaries. All 14 incumbents are Republicans.
- South Dakota: Fourteen of the 78 incumbents who ran (17.9%) lost primaries. All 14 incumbents are Republicans.
- West Virginia: Fifteen of the 98 incumbents who ran (15.3%) lost primaries. All 15 incumbents are Republicans.
- Delaware: Five of the 43 incumbents who ran (11.6%) lost primaries. All five incumbents are Democrats.
- North Dakota: Six of the 52 incumbents who ran (11.5%) lost primaries. One incumbent is a Democrat, and the other five are Republicans.
Delaware has a Democratic trifecta, and the four other states have Republican trifectas.
Steeped in History
Welcome to Steeped in History, a new Weekly Brew column where we'll share a story from America's political past. Today’s column is adapted from Ballotpedia founder and CEO Leslie Graves’ weekly Substack column, Civic Blueprints.
The president’s party repudiated: The 1894 midterms
Historically, midterm elections have acted as referendums on the incumbent president. Data from the Brookings Institution covering congressional midterms from 1862 to 2014 shows that in all but three elections during that period, a president’s party loses seats in Congress.
Sometimes, like the 1894 midterm, the presidential party’s losses were catastrophic.
What made that election so different?
The incumbent president, Democrat Grover Cleveland, had been elected to a second, non-consecutive term in 1892, becoming the first president to achieve that feat. Cleveland defeated the man who defeated him in 1888, President Benjamin Harrison (R), 46 percent to 43 percent. As historian Henry Graff wrote:
In assessing the 1892 election, the Republicans' poor showing in the Midwest among ethnic voters, including Germans and Irish, probably reflected the party's identification with temperance. Also, Republican votes had plummeted in the South as African Americans were disfranchised by various Jim Crow laws (poll taxes, literacy tests, and residency requirements). Additionally, the McKinley Tariff of 1890, a Republican piece of legislation, led to higher prices and wage cuts in select industries, infuriating large segments of the public.
Cleveland was back and had congressional majorities behind his program of fiscal restraint and limited government. Events would quickly turn against the returning incumbent’s party, starting with the Panic of 1893, “one of the most severe financial crises in the history of the United States.” As Gary Richardson and Tim Sablik wrote:
According to estimates by Andrew Jalil and Charles Hoffman, industrial production fell by 15.3 percent between 1892 and 1894, and unemployment rose to between 17 and 19 percent.1 After a brief pause, the economy slumped into recession again in late 1895 and did not fully recover until mid-1897.
Alongside the financial crisis was labor unrest, including the 1894 Pullman Strike. There was also the continued rise of the Populist Party, whose presidential nominee, James Weaver, had won five states in 1892.
Democrats had tried to cement their congressional majorities through aggressive gerrymandering. It’s possible these efforts contributed to their losses, which remain the largest in any midterm election in our history.
Democrats lost 125 House and four Senate seats. But the effects of that election lasted longer than a single election. Republicans would control both houses of Congress and the presidency until 1912.
Every midterm election influences the incumbent president’s priorities. Following this history-making loss, Cleveland biographer Alyn Brodsky wrote:
… not only did Cleveland find himself faced now with strong opposition in the House and the Senate, but given that most members from his own party were against him, his hopes for getting any required legislation through Congress ranged from dubious to despondent. (Results in the gubernatorial races were equally bleak for the President’s party. Wisconsin, New York, and Illinois, which Democrats had taken in 1892, were now lost to the Republicans, who even took the traditionally Democratic statehouses of West Virginia, Missouri, Maryland, and Delaware.
Midterm elections, then, can change the political landscape in Congress and the states. While none has matched the degree of change witnessed in the 1894 midterms, each midterm since has added a new chapter to our nation’s rich political history.
In other news
Go beyond the Daily Brew with Ballotpedia News. Explore this week's headlines below:
- An overview of the rules, agency documents, and notices published in the Federal Register in the third quarter of 2026
- This year's state legislative elections are the third most competitive since 2010 Ballotpedia's 16th Annual State Legislative Competitiveness Report shows
- Both major parties are contesting 66% of this year’s state legislative races, the most since 2018
- Ballotpedia releases federal judicial vacancy count for October 2026
This week’s read
This week’s read comes from Robe & Gavel, a Ballotpedia newsletter that covers the cases SCOTUS heard, which judges retired, which were nominated, and what pivotal rulings came out of other federal courts.
Arguments heard by SCOTUS this week
The Supreme Court heard four arguments this week. Click the links below to learn more about the cases.
Oct. 5
- Suncor Energy Inc. v. County Commissioners of Boulder County concerns the Clean Air Act.
- The questions presented: 1. “Whether federal law precludes state-law claims seeking relief for injuries allegedly caused by the effects of interstate and international greenhouse-gas emissions on the global climate.
“2. Whether this court has statutory and Article III jurisdiction to hear this case.”
- The questions presented: 1. “Whether federal law precludes state-law claims seeking relief for injuries allegedly caused by the effects of interstate and international greenhouse-gas emissions on the global climate.
- Johnson v. United States Congress concerns the Veterans’ Judicial Review Act.
- The questions presented: “Did the Veterans' Judicial Review Act strip district courts of the jurisdiction, recognized by this Court in Johnson v. Robison, 415 U.S. 361 (1974), to hear challenges to the constitutionality of acts of Congress affecting veterans' benefits?"
Oct. 6
- Anderson v. Intel Corporation Investment Policy Committee concerns the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA).
- The questions presented: “Whether, for claims predicated on fund underperformance, pleading that an ERISA fiduciary failed to use the requisite ‘care, skill, prudence, or diligence’ under the circumstances and thus breached ERISA's duty of prudence when investing plan assets requires alleging a ‘meaningful benchmark.”
Oct. 7
- Department of the Air Force v. Prutehi Guahan concerns the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) and the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).
- The questions presented: "1. Whether the federal government's submission to a state or territorial regulator of an application to renew a RCRA permit is ‘final agency action’ that is immediately reviewable under the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. 704.
“2. Whether the federal government must comply with the general environmental review procedures of the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, 42 U.S.C. 4321 et seq., before submitting a permit-renewal application under RCRA, which sets forth its own specific procedures to review environmental impacts in the context of hazardous-waste treatment."
- The questions presented: "1. Whether the federal government's submission to a state or territorial regulator of an application to renew a RCRA permit is ‘final agency action’ that is immediately reviewable under the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. 704.
This week’s watch
2026 Battleground Race: J. Lombardo (R), A. Ford (D), and D. Ford (No Party) for Nevada Governor
Incumbent Republican Joe Lombardo, Democrat Aaron Ford, and nonpartisan candidate Danielle Ford (no relation) are running in the general election for governor of Nevada on Nov. 3, 2026.