Making Medicaid expansion work and more news from the states

Good morning! We’re starting off our Thursday edition of Daybreak with election results out of Mississippi.

Democrat Scott Colom won a hard-fought U.S. Senate race in Mississippi, breaking Republicans’ dominance of statewide offices, ousting one of the state’s sitting senators for the first time since the 1940s and becoming the state’s first Black senator since Reconstruction.

The Associated Press called the race with 99% of precincts reporting. Colom led 49.2% to Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith’s 48.7%. 

In more election news, the Alaska Division of Elections does not have to produce a report of rejected absentee voters in the midterm elections, a state court ruled on a lawsuit filed by the campaign of Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Mary Peltola.

Across the States Newsroom network, we’re keeping an eye on the fallout from midterm elections and more. Don’t miss out — sign up for the rest of our free newsletters on state government, voting laws and much more.

National: A long-postponed reckoning could be coming soon for millions of student loan borrowers who are now faced with garnished wages and seized tax refunds as soon as next year. 

Kentucky: The attorney general and the Kentucky Press Association are asking the state’s highest court to unseal confidential files involving a controversial family court case in which a Louisville judge ordered a toddler returned to her mother just before she was deported to Guatemala.

Texas: The federal government has cut $29.2 million from state health organizations that test thousands of people for HIV directly in their communities, the latest in a series of public health funding cuts. Texas was the nation’s largest beneficiary of PS21-2102 funding, with grant money going to 11 community-based organizations over the past five years.

West Virginia: The state will soon allow eligible parents who operate small businesses through an LLC to qualify for the childcare assistance program. Gov. Patrick Morrisey’s administration changed the long-standing policy after West Virginia Watch detailed how the rule prevented low-income mothers with LLCs from accessing childcare.

Ohio: House lawmakers approved a measure Tuesday eliminating long-standing restrictions on firearm suppressors and short-barreled rifles. Currently, gun owners who knowingly acquire either could be subject to a fifth-degree felony under state law.

Montana: In a historic vote, Republicans chose Rep. Katie Zolnikov as speaker of the House in the Legislature. She is the first woman elected to the role in the state. Zolnikov, 29, also will be the youngest female speaker of a state House in the nation’s history.

See the rest of the news of the day from all 50 states, plus our D.C. Bureau and Stateline, on News From The States.

Three days after Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms won the governor’s seat, Ryan Loke faced a crowd of Georgia health advocates, some giddy at the possibility of the state finally expanding Medicaid. Loke understood. In 2019, as health policy adviser to newly elected Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, Loke had helped form the Georgia Pathways to Coverage program and knew its struggles well. He has long been a convert to full expansion, but he was actually delivering a warning, Georgia Recorder reports.

“Medicaid expansion in this state under the provisions of H.R. 1 as it’s in effect right now — versus as if H.R. 1 were not in effect?” he said. “Massively different scenarios.”

Loke was referring to President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act signed into law in July 2025 that is packed with nearly $1 trillion in Medicaid cuts in the coming years. 

And knowing the issue intimately, now from inside the system as a senior vice president and chief health policy officer at Grady Health System, Loke wanted the people in the audience to know there was still more to do to make Medicaid expansion work. The coverage of large numbers of Georgians could depend on it.

If nothing changes to simplify eligibility on the federal level, Georgians who are eligible for Medicaid expansion will continue to fall through cracks in the state’s bureaucracy, said Jen Wagner, director of Medicaid eligibility and enrollment at the Washington-based Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.  

Ahead of the winter ski season, state transportation officials are urging drivers to make sure their vehicles are prepared to safely navigate winter canyon roads before heading to the slopes, Utah News Dispatch reports. 

The Utah Department of Transportation this week announced it has launched a new online quiz to help Utah motorists determine whether their vehicles meet winter traction requirements based on where they plan to drive and what type of vehicle they plan to use. The quiz helps Utah drivers be prepared for all state-owned roads in Utah. 

The new quiz comes as state transportation officials and local law enforcement agencies enter their second winter season of stricter traction laws for Big and Little Cottonwood canyons, where many of the state’s ski resorts draw long lines of traffic on snowy days. 

In 2025, the Utah Legislature passed a measure that allows transportation department officials to enforce traction requirements up to 24 hours before a storm begins. During severe winter driving conditions, the department enforces a new administrative rule that requires vehicles to have specific traction abilities or devices, and the Cottonwood canyons have a “class 3 designation” with stricter requirements.