GOP redistricting; France, Serbia protests; Brazil election : NPR

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Republicans had a plan to keep control of the House in the midterms: Redraw congressional district lines to favor the GOP and avoid the historical pattern of heavy midterm losses. President Trump began pressuring Republican-led states to do just that last year, but it isn’t working out as expected. Republicans could now be spending millions of dollars on House seats that were supposed to be easy wins, and end up losing anyway. Of the 15 districts drawn specifically to favor Republicans, only five are rated by the Cook Political Report as either likely or solid Republican. Most are toss-ups or lean toward a Democratic win.

• 🎧 One reason the Republicans’ redistricting push hasn’t been as successful as expected is that some district lines were drawn based on the 2024 Trump electorate, NPR’s Tamara Keith tells Up First. Since then, his support has weakened, particularly among young and Latino voters. Several Democratic incumbents targeted by redistricting have stuck it out to fight for their seats. A Republican strategist involved with midterm races, but who wasn’t authorized to speak publicly, pushed back on the characterization that redistricting didn’t work, saying that it “creates new battlefields” but doesn’t “create outcomes.”
• ➡️ The NPR App has all of NPR’s election coverage in one place — from the biggest stories across the country, to the issues that matter close to home. Browse headlines, playlists, podcast episodes, videos and more, all on the 2026 Election tab.

In a stunning political comeback, leftist Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has won a fourth term in the presidential runoff election in Brazil. Lula defeated Flávio Bolsonaro, son of former far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, by more than 4 million votes. It’s the first time since Brazil restored democracy in 1989 that a candidate who finished second in the first round has gone on to win the presidency.

• 🎧 Lula’s win appears to have put the brake on a right-wing sweep in Latin America, NPR’s Carrie Kahn says. Seven conservative presidents have been elected in the past 18 months. Kahn says one message helped rally voters in the final weeks of Lula’s campaign: that the return of a Bolsonaro to power would be an existential threat to Brazilian democracy.

Large demonstrations against the government continued over the weekend in France, where more than 100,000 people showed up in Paris, and more than 400,000 came out nationwide. What started with students demanding better conditions has grown into a much bigger movement. Unions and public-sector workers have joined, calling for more public spending and protesting growing inequality. Similar protests have erupted across Europe, from Spain to Serbia.

• 🎧 The reasons behind the protests vary, from schools and housing costs to corruption, NPR’s Eleanor Beardsley says. But they have something in common: most are leaderless movements by young people frustrated with the world they’re being left to. In Serbia, crowds celebrated in the streets of Belgrade after a student-led movement known as the “student-list” defeated the party of longtime strongman Aleksandar Vucic in Sunday’s parliamentary elections. The win followed two years of protests over government corruption and lack of accountability.