On May 29, 2026, Astead Herndon participated as a panelist on WBUR to discuss the intersection of local politics and data centers. But on his home turf at Today, Explained, Herndon is keeping the focus squarely on the national fight over voting maps and democratic reform.
Herndon stepped in to host the show's look at redistricting, bringing on Amy Walter of The Cook Political Report to unpack the chaos. As Herndon put it, Walter's expertise "adds another wrinkle into an ever-developing story" of how state lines are being redrawn.
The core tension lies in how much local redistricting has changed. While Astead Herndon pushes for national gerrymandering reform, his guests emphasize just how stubborn state-level politics can be. Amy Walter noted that when she first started covering the beat, "it was a really parochial exercise, and every state had its own quirks," pointing to Republican-controlled states that refused to redraft their lines. Walter also challenged Herndon's optimism on democratic reforms, warning that "one of the challenges we have, and California's a great example of this," complicates any easy nationwide fix.
As the next cycle of local redistricting battles looms, Herndon's ability to bridge the gap between high-minded millennial reform and backroom statehouse map-making will be put to the test. Whether national reforms can ever overcome these parochial quirks remains the defining question of his political coverage.