The 2026 midterm elections might seem like they’re far away… but already, the nation’s oldest civil rights organization is prepping for what will determine at least the rest of President Donald Trump’s second term. In the face of DEI rollbacks and the erasure of Black history by the Trump administration, NAACP is fighting back in more ways than one.
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Now, the organization has kicked off a series of town halls in order to get Black voters engaged and ready for next year. “The 2026 midterm elections will determine whether our democracy still holds on or whether the people surrender their power to a king,” NAACP President Derrick Johnson told CBS News.
According to the NAACP website, the town halls are expected to last from August to October 2025, and they’re making stops all across the country. “Each event will spotlight how federal budget decisions impact Black lives locally and what we must demand of Congress, state lawmakers, and public agencies to protect our communities,” the website said.
The first one was held in New Jersey, and the conversation mostly focused on Trump’s recent immigration raids. The state ranks No. 7 on the list of highest Latinx populations in the country. The president has already shown that he’s wiling to send the National Guard to states in order to complete his agenda– as seen in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C.
“It’s a slippery slope to eroding Constitutional Rights and democracy for all people,” former gubernatorial candidate Newark Mayor Ras Baraka told the town hall filled with hundreds of residents. “Once you allow them to do it to one person, you allow them to do it to you, because they would set a precedent to do these things to anybody they want to.”
These town halls mark the first of its kind, but it’s not the organization’s first time investing in elections for Black voters. NAACP invested $20 million during the 2024 presidential election. This helped mobilize more than 14.5 million Black voters.
In the last election, President Trump made gains among Black voters, according to CNN exit polls. Twenty-one percent of Black men voted for Trump and only seven percent of Black women.
NAACP town halls are next scheduled for Texas, New York, California, North Carolina, Arizona, Wisconsin, Ohio and Maryland.
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