Cardi B, Lil Baby, Nicki Minaj: Hip-Hop's Receipts for the Nov. 3, 2026 Midterms

Hip-hop showed up on the timeline for the Nov. 3, 2026 US midterms. Cardi B, Lil Baby, JT, Plies and Monaleo all pushed fans to vote, according to an Election Day roundup from Hip-Hop Wired. Nicki Minaj took a different lane: she campaigned for a Republican Senate candidate in Michigan, Newsweek reported.

Here are the receipts we could verify, and what's still open.

What we know

• The stakes: Tuesday's ballot covers all 435 House seats, 35 of the 100 Senate seats and 39 state and territorial governor races, per the 2026 United States elections page.
• Cardi B: She nodded to all the online debate, then told fans to take it to the ballot box. "Make sure you get out and vote tomorrow so you can make the change you want to see," she wrote in a post shared before Election Day, according to Newsweek. Newsweek said she kept it nonpartisan and didn't back any candidates.
• Lil Baby: Hip-Hop Wired's Nov. 3 roundup featured an Election Day 2026 message from the rapper.
• JT: The City Girls rapper went to Florida A&M University to tell people to go vote, per the same roundup.
• Plies: He said he was excited to vote, Hip-Hop Wired reported.
• Monaleo: She was credited with bringing young voters out to the polls.
• Nicki Minaj: She went partisan. Newsweek reported that at a Michigan rally with President Donald Trump on Oct. 25, Minaj led chants for Republican Senate candidate Mike Rogers and governor candidate John James. She called the election a "major turning point for our country" and said she would back Trump again if he ran again.
• The other side of that race: Bruce Springsteen endorsed Rogers' opponent, Democrat Abdul El-Sayed, on Instagram, which puts two of music's biggest names on opposite sides of one Senate seat, per Newsweek.
• DJs at the Polls: This hip-hop voter group planned to put DJs at 5,000 polling locations on Election Day, WUSF reported. It started in Philadelphia in 2009, now runs in 24 states and picked 2,000 DJs from 9,000 applicants. This year is its first time in Tampa, with 26 sites in the city.

Context

The Michigan race is the one where rap and politics actually cross. Rogers and El-Sayed are running for the open seat left by retiring Democratic Sen. Gary Peters. Newsweek says the race matters nationally because Democrats need a net gain of four seats to take back the Senate. Republicans went into Election Day holding 53 seats to the Democrats' 45, Newsweek reported, citing Ballotpedia.

Minaj's Michigan rally came nine days before Election Day. Rogers ran unopposed for the Republican nomination and narrowly lost a 2024 Senate race to Democrat Elissa Slotkin, Newsweek noted.

The rest of the verified posts were about turnout, not candidates. DJs at the Polls has hip-hop roots too. Founder Anton Moore came up with the idea while working on BET's "Rap City," WUSF reported. The goal, he told the station, is to make the polling place somewhere people actually want to be.

What's unconfirmed

• Results: No winners had been called when this was published. We won't guess the outcome of the Michigan Senate race or anything else.
• Who actually voted: Some of these posts were reminders, not ballot photos. Unless an artist showed it, we're not saying they voted.
• Full post details: Hip-Hop Wired gave only one-line captions for the Lil Baby, JT, Plies and Monaleo posts. We're reporting those summaries, not the full posts.

Did your favorite rapper post a voting reminder this year, or stay quiet? Drop the name.