Over the past six years, a team of filmmakers across the United States has documented the views and experiences of Americans during key moments in the nation’s recent history.
With midterm elections less than a month away, what do Americans think about where the country has been and where it is heading? And how are they navigating another polarized election?
American Voices 2026, a new 90-minute documentary, returns to the people FRONTLINE first filmed six years ago to explore those questions.
The idea for American Voices was born back in 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic intensified. Documentary filmmaker Mike Shum and his college friend Blair Woodbury — by then an emergency physician — felt an urgency to document how Americans were responding to a global pandemic and to what Shum called “a collective unknown.” They gathered a team of roughly two dozen cinematographers to film across 12 states, capturing how local communities responded to the pandemic, to protests sparked by George Floyd’s killing and to a divisive presidential election.
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To document a range of perspectives and experiences in a polarized nation, the filmmakers filmed with people in a mix of suburban, rural and urban areas — from a pastor in Iowa to a barber in Oregon; from a doctor in Texas to nail salon owners in California. The resulting documentary was American Voices: A Nation in Turmoil.
Four years later, amid another contentious election, Shum’s team revisited the same people in American Voices 2024, to see if their lives and perspectives had changed.
Now, in the midst of a faltering economy, an immigration crackdown, and an unpopular war with Iran, American Voices 2026 returns once again to the same people as they share their perspectives on the past two years and their hopes and fears for what’s ahead.
For the full story, watch American Voices 2026 starting Oct. 13, 2026, at 10/9c on PBS stations (check local listings) and on FRONTLINE’s YouTube channel, and at 7/6c at pbs.org/frontline and in the PBS App. The documentary will also be available on PBS Documentaries on Prime Video. American Voices 2026 is a FRONTLINE Production with Mike Shum Productions. The director is Mike Shum. The producers are Tarryn Mento and Mike Shum. The writers are Hillary Bachelder & Mike Shum. The senior producers are Callie T. Wiser and Frank Koughan. The managing editor of FRONTLINE is Andrew Metz. The editor-in-chief and executive producer of FRONTLINE is Raney Aronson-Rath.
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