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WAMU’s Week Ahead: Maryland special session on redistricting, Virginia primary elections and D.C. jazz singer Akua Allrich 5%
By Jsinnenberg37%
8/3/2026, 10:16:37 AM
BS Summary: This article contains 4 faulty reasoning types, including Hasty Generalization, Appeal to Authority, and Overconfidence Bias, with Framing Effect as the most egregious example at 17.4% saturation with 94 hits. Analysis detected 158 faulty-reasoning hits from 540 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 14.6% and a BS Rank of 5% (24,843 of 26,005 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 95.50% of the article peer group.
Here are some of the stories WAMU is following this week:
The Maryland General Assembly is reconvening in Annapolis this week for a special legislative session.
“Leadership has been very clear this will be focused on one thing: redistricting,” explains WAMU’s Jenny Abamu.
Governor Wes Moore began the year pushing for the General Assembly to take up a bill to redraw Maryland’s congressional maps and eliminate the lone Republican-held seat .
The redistricting arms race started last year when President Trump compelled Texas lawmakers to redraw their maps ahead of the 2026 midterms to shore up more consistent Republican seats.
California followed suit, passing a constitutional amendment last year that allows the state to redraw its maps in favor of Democrats.
Democrats in Maryland responded, passing a bill in the House of Delegates that would create a constitutional amendment to redraw statewide maps.
However, Senate President Bill Ferguson effectively stopped the bill in its tracks in his chamber.
He insisted redrawing Maryland’s maps, which are already considered by Republicans to be among the most gerrymandered in the country, would lead to court challenges.
He reinforced this point after the Virginia Supreme Court threw out a new map passed by voters back in April.
The pressure continued on Ferguson, from statewide leadership and national lawmakers.
Governor Moore declined to endorse Ferguson in his primary race this past June.
Ferguson ultimately relented from the pressure and agreed to the special session.
It comes just months after the Supreme Court overturned provisions of the Voting Rights Act , leading several Republican-controlled states throughout the South to redraw their maps.
Abamu is in Annapolis throughout the special session to report back.
The redistricting effort in Virginia threw a curveball into the Commonwealth’s election cycle this year.
Hoping for new congressional maps, state lawmakers pushed this year’s primary elections from June to August.
With no new districts, elections in Northern Virginia appear likely to be uneventful.
There are progressive challengers to several Democratic incumbents, like Don Beyer who represents Virginia’s 8th district.
However, experts do not expect these incumbents to be unseated in their primaries, or in the midterm elections this November.
Political analyst Larry Sabato of the University of Virginia shared this appraisal of what could have been a highly competitive race in Virginia’s 7th district with Kojo Nnamdi on The Politics Hour last month .
“I think Republicans’ chances of winning that district faded, maybe into obscurity… this was not the year to run.
… The underlying trend, particularly in places like Northern Virginia and southern Maryland, will be pro-Democratic because Trump is so unpopular in regions like that.”
Sabato had a similar outlook for Mark Warner’s race to retain his U.S.
Senate seat, even as three Republicans vie to challenge him come November.
And later this week, D.C.-native Akua Allrich comes by the studio.
She’s a jazz singer with deep ties to the Pan-African and African diaspora communities in the D.C.-region, thanks to her father, a co-founder of the venerable NationHouse school .
Allrich will join WAMU’s All Things Considered host Tamika Smith to discuss how those communities and legacy inform her new album Bonya.
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