Hey, everybody, welcome to Next Up, exciting week here. I'm Mark Kaepern, editor-in-chief of the live

interactive video platform 2A and your guide to everything next up, you nexters. This Tuesday,

November 4th, as we record this election day for much of the United States. But our focus today

is not going to be on these 2025 races. We will have full analysis on Thursday's

program, all my reporting in just a few hours about what it all means, what happened on Tuesday

that is going to impact what happens next. That'll be on Thursday. But today, we've got a different

focus. The kickoff of the 26 midterm elections, that starts with us here now. You heard it here,

folks. We're beginning 2026 today because here at next up, we're always looking to do things different.

We're always thinking what's next up that can be better, what can be different? If the old ways are

not serving the public interest, we want to change things. We want to make sure that if you're

voting in 2026, whatever election, whatever part of the country you live in, that you get the best

information about what the candidates are like, who they are, what they believe in. So in today's

program, the very first debate, we believe, of the 2026 cycle, moderated by me. But not about me. It's not about the moderators.

The moderators should stay out of the waste. It's about the candidates and, of course,

most of all, about the voters. So joining us today, two candidates who are running to be the next

governor of California, Democrat, Stephen Klubeck and Republican Steve Hilton, both of whom

hope to replace Gavin Newsom, he's term limited. That's a very big job, very big job. And they'll be here,

but not like a normal network debate that you've seen. We're not going to have buzzers. We're not

going to have time segments. No attempts by me to ask clever questions to try to trip up the

moderator. No desire on my part to become the story. This is the kind of format that I've long

advocated, just two candidates running for the same job, directly engaging with each other,

addressing the issues that matter most. You don't have to have a legacy news anchor who's there rooting for one candidate or the other.

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