Rising prices squeeze Americans and more news from the states

Welcome back, readers! Thanks for joining us for our Monday edition of Daybreak. With early voting in the midterms underway, we’re taking a look at election coverage from across the states.

In Tennessee, a Democratic lawmaker is calling for election officials to resolve complaints that voting machines are defaulting to candidates they didn’t want to select but stopped short of saying ballots are rigged.

President Donald Trump held a rally in Michigan to energize the state’s Republicans, spending a considerable amount of time in his speech attacking Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed, and using anti-Muslim rhetoric against the candidate in a bid to convince voters to show up and defeat him.

And at a rally in Ohio featuring Barack Obama, the former president made a pitch for basic decency in the face of leadership he dismissed as “unserious.” Trump, with his efforts to build a White House ballroom, pave the Rose Garden and install a helipad, ought to be on HGTV, Obama quipped.

Arizona: The state’s top election official and attorney general have dropped their lawsuit asking a judge to force Maricopa County Recorder Justin Heap to reinstate the voting rights of 25 people who were falsely flagged as noncitizens by a federal database. The resolution came after court-ordered mediation, and the voting rights were restored.

Idaho: State lawmakers will weigh whether to fund several drug-prevention and treatment projects, totaling more than $3 million, through the state’s endowment fund from tobacco lawsuit settlement money. 

Virginia: A state prosecutor’s recent decision not to charge a police officer for sharing license plate reader data with federal authorities without authorization could spur reform efforts in the commonwealth. Automated license plate readers have drawn criticism over privacy concerns and alleged misuse.

Utah: A federal judge has dismissed a Trump administration lawsuit against the state's top election official that sought voters’ sensitive private information.

Maryland: Lawmakers and educators hailed a Harford County Circuit Court judge’s ruling reversing the county school board’s decision to pull a graphic novel from school system library shelves, after a panel of teachers and students had voted to keep it.

Oregon: No new Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention centers are slated for construction in Newport anytime soon, and the federal government will provide at least a month’s notice to city officials before any environmental permitting would get underway.

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.

Americans’ growing frustration over high prices has defined many political campaigns ahead of November’s midterm elections, Stateline reports.

Rising costs of healthcare, gas and groceries during Trump’s second term have put Republicans on defense, not only in Washington, D.C., but also in statehouse and gubernatorial races across the country.

As the political environment continues to sour for Republicans, a new analysis released by the Urban Institute underscores just how expensive everyday life has become in America: Gas and electricity prices are rising much faster than paychecks. Housing, childcare and healthcare are becoming a bigger strain for millions of people. 

And affordability pressure is worsening in once-affordable havens such as Atlanta; Louisville, Kentucky; and Rochester, New York, where costs of housing, groceries and healthcare are increasing faster than the national average.

The latest installment of The American Affordability Tracker from the left-leaning think tank details how costs of food, housing, energy and healthcare have changed across all 50 states over recent years. High prices are pinching people across income brackets, with an estimated 49% of families unable to afford the basic costs of living. That’s according to Urban Institute’s true cost of economic security calculation, which measures how much is needed to live securely.

The leaves have only just begun to fall, but New Hampshire’s Department of Transportation is already raising concerns about snowplowing season. For years, the agency has struggled to recruit plow drivers and has turned to private contractors to make up the gap, New Hampshire Bulletin reports. 

The department presented its latest maneuver to the Executive Council: a plan to increase the amount it pays those contractors by 15%. That move would raise the hourly rate for private plow operators with a commercial driving license from $26.45 per hour to $30.42 per hour. 

The increase would cost the state an additional $2 million to $3 million for the 2026 to 2027 winter season, the department estimates. That money could come from the New Hampshire Highway Fund, funded by motor vehicle registration fees and gas taxes, or the Turnpike Fund, funded by tolls. 

Department of Transportation Commissioner David Rodrigue told councilors the increases are necessary to help combat an intractable workforce shortage. The department is facing an overall 26% vacancy rate, one of the highest in the state, but the vacancy for plow drivers specifically is “significantly higher than that,” Rodrigue said. 

The Executive Council approved the plan last week. But councilors in both parties raised objections with the department’s use of private contractors and urged Rodrigue to do more to increase the ranks of Department of Transportation employees.