The midterms officially begin.

On Tuesday, voters in Arkansas, North Carolina and Texas voted in party primaries to elect candidates for federal, state, and local offices in the 2026 midterms. In the Texas Democratic Senate primary, state Rep. James Talarico defeated Rep. Jasmine Crockett, while Sen. John Cornyn and Attorney General Ken Paxton will head to a runoff in the Republican Senate primary. In North Carolina, former Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley and former Gov. Roy Cooper (D) won their respective party’s Senate primaries. Meanwhile, Sen. Tom Cotton (R) won renomination for a third term in Arkansas’s Republican Senate primary and will face farmer Hallie Shoffner (D) in the general election. The rise of measles.Last month, we covered measles outbreaks in different states across the country, leading the United States to the brink of losing its elimination status with the disease for the first time in over two decades. For our latest YouTube video, Associate Producer Aidan Gorman takes a look into what’s driving the rise in cases, and the role that vaccines have to play.You can watch the video here!Ad-free podcasts are here!To listen to this podcast ad-free, and to enjoy our subscriber only premium content, go to ReadTangle.com to sign up!You can read today's podcast⁠ ⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠, our “Under the Radar” story ⁠here and today’s “Have a nice day” story ⁠here⁠.You can subscribe to Tangle by clicking here or drop something in our tip jar by clicking here. Take the survey: Who do you think will win this year’s Texas Senate election? Let us know.Our Executive Editor and Founder is Isaac Saul. Our Executive Producer is Jon Lall.This podcast was written by: Isaac Saul and audio edited and mixed by Dewey Thomas. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75.Our newsletter is edited by Managing Editor Ari Weitzman, Senior Editor Will Kaback, Lindsey Knuth, Bailey Saul, and Audrey Moorehead. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.