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Journalist Joy Reid speaks to Florida A&M student journalists during her stop in Tallahassee <\/p>\n
(Provided By \/ Jorde Jones)<\/p>\n
It is twilight at Bragg Memorial Stadium when, amidst the familiar buzz of the night on Florida A&M\u2019s campus, a large blue bus makes a sharp turn downhill to pull into the parking lot.\u00a0<\/p>\n
This isn\u2019t a Greyhound or a typical coach, rather this midterm season it\u2019s become the new home base of Joy Reid, famed former MSNBC television show host and prolific political commentator.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re basically in our living room,\u201d Reid quipped as students toured the bus which is now acting as her center of operations during The Joy Reid Show\u2019s ongoing \u2018 Midterminology \u2018 Tour.\u00a0<\/p>\n
During the tour she\u2019s hosted several politicians, from Justin Pearson, a candidate for U.S. Representative in Tennessee to Angie Nixon who is running for the U.S. Senate in Florida.\u00a0<\/p>\n
She\u2019s also gotten the chance to directly engage with voters across the South, going to areas that many traditional news networks have shunned for years, including Mississippi and Alabama. \u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd now we\u2019re in Tallahassee,\u201d Reid said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Reid remarked that this year Black voters seemed motivated in ways that she hadn\u2019t seen for over a decade.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll tell you, the consistent thing that I\u2019ve seen is a level of motivation among Black voters that is unlike what I\u2019m used to in a midterm. And I\u2019m including the midterms when Barack Obama was president.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
She pointed to a variety of potential factors that may be leading to this surge in motivation, from rapidly increasing prices for consumers, to an upsurge in voting rights concerns among Black voters after a 2025 Supreme Court decision,<\/a> that led to a mass slashing of majority Black districts across the South.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cBetween the gas prices, the food prices \u2026 and the anger over the attempts to steal Black votes and undermine the Voting Rights Act, it seems to have motivated some folks\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n For Reid, this year\u2019s election cycle is deeper than a simple civic choice; she views it as a way to protect the Black community from ongoing attacks.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWhichever party is anti-Black, that\u2019s where six in 10 white voters are going to go. … Black voters have to wake up to that being an actual fact, and we have to vote in a bloc to prevent people who think like that from governing us,\u201d Reid said. \u201cI don\u2019t really care if people are racist, if they don\u2019t like Black people. I just don\u2019t want them governing me.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Reid doesn\u2019t simply view voting as a right, but also as a crucial component of Black culture. In Reid\u2019s eyes Black people who refuse to vote are shunning a history and tradition of civic engagement.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cOur history is voting, the minute we got the vote after slavery, we went right in there and voted. \u00a0Don\u2019t be anti the culture. If you don\u2019t vote, you\u2019re anti your culture,\u201d Reid said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Joy Reid gives students a peek onto the bus serving as her home base during her \u2018Midterminology\u2019 Tour <\/p>\n (Provided By \/ Jorde Jones) <\/p>\n The idea of touring across the South to meet voters wasn\u2019t new to Reid, but during her time at MSNBC, she felt limited to areas where journalists typically swarm during election season like Iowa or New Hampshire.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI always wanted to go out during election season and they normally let us, so we would go to Iowa. You know they always want to go to the same place,\u201d Reid said. \u201cI asked to go on a five-city tour, I wanted to go to Arkansas, all these Southern states, places that no one normally goes, and they said no.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Reid sees the \u2018Midterminology\u2019 tour as a way to express her newfound journalistic freedom while also connecting back to one of the basics of journalism, the face-to-face contact that breathes life into stories.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s about talking to our people, inspiring our people and also just finding out what our people are doing,\u201d Reid said. \u201cI\u2019m doing this, because that\u2019s the only way to cover people; it\u2019s to actually talk to people,\u201d Reid said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Joy Reid\u2019s tour continues, and she livestreams her journey on various platforms, including her YouTube channel<\/a>, Facebook page<\/a> and Instagram page<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n ![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/IMG_5539-1024x683.jpg\")
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