Grounded with Jon Tester & Maritsa Georgiou

A quick update from Maritsa on the future of the Grounded Podcast.

As it stands, Democrats have a 54-44 majority in the Senate, with results still pending in Alaska and Mississippi. They have 241 seats in the House and expected to gain more. Kansas is sending a Democrat to the U.S. Senate for the first time since 1932. James Talarico will be the first Democratic senator from Texas since 1988. Keisha Lance Bottoms became the first Black woman elected governor of a...

Three days out and we decided to continue our marathon episode run with another candidate: Justin J. Pearson, known as one of the “Tennessee Three,” who’s now running for U.S. House. Pearson tells us how the redistricting fight in the South has dramatically changed his race, what he’s hearing from Republicans and Democrats alike, and why he frames his politics as “justice rooted in love.” We also...

We are days away from ELECTION DAY and we asked our favorite election data nerd (and former Obama campaign manager + University of Montana superfan) Jim Messina to join us to break down the state of the races. And we literally go down the battleground list one by one in a psuedo-lightning round. Messina breaks down his predictions for the Senate, the House, and another category of races he thinks...

There’s a whole lot of noise about threats to the midterm elections, now eight days away. We asked David Becker from the Center for Election Innovation & Research to come back and help us get grounded in logic and facts. Let’s start with the good news: Becker says we will blow past 30 million votes already cast at some point today. “The highest turnout we’ve ever had for a midterm election was...

In the final weeks of the campaign cycle, JT has been traveling across the country stumping for candidates. He returned from Kansas last week and couldn’t quit talking about the Democratic candidate in the KS-02 House race, Don Coover , who’s also a West Point grad, Army vet, veterinarian, and rancher. Coover joined us to talk about why he jumped into politics, how tariffs are squeezing his fellow...

We didn’t mean for this episode to turn into a lesson on furries for Jon Tester, but here we are. Former Sen. Doug Jones is in a rematch against Sen. Tommy Tuberville—this time for governor of Alabama. This is a state that has voted for the Republican nominee in every presidential election going back to 1980, and which Trump won in 2024 with 64.6% of the vote. Even while we were live, Alabamians w...

We hobbled our way through some more technical difficulties, but are grateful for another chance to talk with retired federal judge Diane Wood, who sat on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeal. She is now one of about 60 retired federal judges who formed the Article III Coalition through Keep Our Republic. Judge Wood stresses the importance of judicial accountability, her proposal for more oversight...

With less than four weeks until the midterms, officials across the country are preparing as the federal pressure on our election administrators ramps up. Nevada Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar, who also chairs the Democratic Association of Secretaries of State, joins us to discuss the Trump administration’s decision to shut international election observers out, the new push to seize voting machin...

This week, the USS Abraham Lincoln is scheduled to return to San Diego after a near-record 10+ month deployment during which we heard reports of suicide attempts, food shortages, plumbing problems, deteriorating mental health and overall abysmal conditions. “First and foremost, it's absolutely not normal,” former Secretary of the U.S. Navy Carlos Del Toro said. “And it's a disaster over there at t...

We had a little communication snafu this morning and our scheduled guest never made it to the live show. We’re working with her team to reschedule! That didn’t stop us from devoting almost an hour to headlines, including the bizarre turn of events at Jack Smith’s testimony in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee. We also discuss Congress ceding more of its power as the administration continues...

As we start a new work week, major TV news networks suspended their pooled coverage of President Donald Trump after he banned CNN, MS NOW and Politico journalists from the White House over the weekend. The three outlets filed a lawsuit against the president and three top advisers Monday, saying the ban violates the First Amendment. We welcome our friend Jim Acosta , whose own White House credentia...

In The New York Times this morning, a top headline reads, “Republicans Reel on the Midterm Map as Deep-Red Areas Come Into Play.” The article discusses the battleground of Georgia, but also vulnerabilities for Republicans in Kansas and Nebraska. The story doesn’t include Montana’s House race in the western district, where new polling shows Democrat Sam Forstag in a dead heat with Republican Aaron...

A few years ago, former White House Communications Director Jennifer Palmieri found herself needing help in north central Montana. Her rented mini van was stuck on a snow-covered road a mile (or two) from Jon Tester’s farm, where she was meeting him for an interview to be featured on The Circus. “It was great television, but mortifying,” Palmieri said. “But yes, Jon Tester big time came to our res...

We wanted to take a moment on the 25th anniversary of terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. We hope you take some time to reflect on all of the lives we lost that day, and also a moment for the more than 9,000 people who have died since from their exposure to toxic materials in the aftermath.

Independent candidates are hoping to leave their mark on the 2026 midterm elections, with 47 on the ballot for U.S. Senate alone. And Montana’s race might be the wildest of them all. Former University of Montana president and Army veteran Seth Bodnar joins Grounded to make his case for Montana’s open U.S. Senate seat. We clear the air on why he is running as an independent, what he’s hearing from...

Grounded welcomes former Ambassador to Japan and White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, known for his aggressive political style, who kicks things off by reminiscing about trying to recruit Jon Tester to run for the House instead of the Senate back in 2006 (spoiler: it was really about beating Chuck Schumer). We have a wide ranging conversation that’s at times playful and at other times blunt an...

Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, has long been telling us to follow the money—especially when it comes to Jeffrey Epstein. Wyden joins Grounded to break down a bombshell investigation his office conducted over four years that revealed major banking institutions looked the other way on Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes and how regulators may have also done the s...

Former Washington Gov. Jay Inslee joins Grounded way too early in the morning to discuss the devastating wildfires out west, worsening climate change impacts, and the drivers behind soaring energy costs. Inslee, who leads the Climate Power accountability project, also lays out what he calls the “four C’s” — cost, chaos, corruption, and climate denial — defining the current political moment. Plus,...

700+ homes. 65,000 evacuated. More than 10,000 acres. And now, one arrest. Investigators believe Aaron Farinacci, 37, started one of the fires that ravaged Spokane, Washington this weekend. He’s now being held on a $1 million bond. The images of the overnight devastation from the Spokane Complex Fires are shocking, but as we’ve seen, this isn’t the first fire to destroy an entire neighborhood and...

We finally had a chance to sit down with Sam Forstag, smokejumper and Democratic candidate for MT-01. The timing was good, too— On Tuesday morning, the DCCC added Forstag to its “Red to Blue” program , which basically means his race is considered one of the most competitive races in the country. That’s a big deal when you consider the last time a Democrat won a statewide race in Montana was in 201...

There are just 106 days until the November election and we have seen no shortage of drama-fueled shakeups. We were so pleased to welcome Erin Covey of The Cook Political Report for a deep dive into the 2026 midterm battleground races. Erin’s focus is typically the House, but she could have fooled us with her comprehensive and nuanced knowledge about the Senate map. She lays out Democrats' top defe...

JT & MG sit down with Rep. Sean Casten (D-IL), a member of the House Financial Services Committee, to dig into a new report from Climate Power and the Center for American Progress on the rising cost of living. Casten, who spent 20 years in the energy industry before Congress, breaks down why natural gas prices are spiking, how blocking cheap renewable energy is driving up bills, and why Democr...