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Pennsylvania Senate nominee John Fetterman (D) said on Monday that he expects his opponent Mehmet Oz (R) to lead initially in the state on Tuesday night due to the sequence of vote counting. The Democratic Lt. Gov. of Pennsylvania said that the GOP planned voting so that their party could “baselessly sow doubt about the election results when it suits them.” “Counting for ballots cast by mail and early in-person cannot begin until Election Day, thanks to the GOP-controlled legislature,” Fetterman wrote in a memo according to The Washington Post, calling the move “intentional” to help Republicans contest election results.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul’s (D) lead over her Republican challenger, Rep. Lee Zeldin, is widening in the state’s gubernatorial race one week from the midterms, according to a new poll. An Emerson College Polling-Pix11-The Hill survey released on Tuesday found 52 percent of very likely voters supported Hochul compared to 44 percent for Zeldin. Three percent said they were undecided.

The city confirms nine of the 10 staff members at the shooting complex have lead levels above the normal range. HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) -- The city has no timeline for when Oahu’s only public shooting range will reopen as an investigation into elevated lead levels in the majority of workers at the facility begins. The city confirmed nine of 10 staff members at the shooting complex who were tested have lead levels above the normal range. Two additional staff members declined to get tested. A timeline of exactly when the city first became aware current employees had been exposed to lead...

Democrats’ lead on the generic congressional ballot widened to 5 points in the newest Politico-Morning Consult survey. Forty seven percent of registered voters said they would vote for the Democratic candidate if the midterm elections were held today, compared to 42 percent who would support a Republican, the poll found. The larger gap aligns with Democrats’ advantage recorded by the pollster in August and early September. But in recent weeks, Republicans had appeared to make gains as gas prices began rising again and the release of worse-than-expected inflation reports. The latest consumer price index showed inflation wasn’t slowing down, indicating...

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) is leading Democrat Charlie Crist by 11 points in race for the governor’s mansion in the Sunshine State, according to a poll released on Wednesday. The Mason-Dixon Florida poll found that 52 percent of likely voters supported DeSantis, compared to the 41 percent that backed Crist, a former governor and U.S. representative. DeSantis also had stronger support from his own party, with 92 percent of Republicans saying they would back the incumbent governor. Fewer Democrats, 84 percent, said they would support Crist, who was a Republican when he last served as governor.

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) has increased his lead over “defund police” Mandela Barnes in Wisconsin’s U.S. Senate race, an AARP poll found Thursday. The survey shows Republicans are picking up steam in the 2022 Senate races in which they must hold Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and North Carolina and reclaim either Arizona, Nevada, Washington State, or Georgia to take back the Senate from Democrats.

Democrats’ lead in the generic congressional ballot narrowed to 2 points in a Politico-Morning Consult poll released Wednesday. The poll found that Democrats led Republicans in the ballot 45 percent to 43 percent, down from the 5-point lead they had in the same poll last week. Democrats are holding the narrow lead six weeks out from the crucial November midterms. Democrats are seeking to defy a historical trend that usually sees the president’s party lose seats in Congress in the midterm elections, while Republicans are trying to retake control of both chambers.

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) has expanded his lead over his Democratic challenger, Stacey Abrams, to 8 percentage points in the Peach State’s gubernatorial race, according to a new poll. Half of likely Georgia voters in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll released on Tuesday said they would support Kemp, while 42 percent said they backed Abrams.

Democrat Wes Moore is leading Republican opponent Dan Cox by 22 points in the race to be Maryland’s next governor, according to a new poll released Monday. About 53 percent of Marylanders would currently back Moore and 31 percent would vote for Cox, according to the survey from Goucher College, The Baltimore Banner and WYPR. Moore enjoys a similar lead among voters who list how favorably they view the candidates.

Democrat John Fetterman holds a five-point lead over Republican Dr. Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania’s race for U.S. Senate, according to a poll. The CBS/YouGov released Wednesday shows that 47 percent of registered voters back Oz, a celebrity doctor, while 52 percent support Fetterman, the state’s lieutenant governor. Another one percent remain undecided. The candidates evenly split the independent demographic, with both garnering 49 percent of the response, but Fetterman is doing better with Democrats than Oz is doing with Republicans. Of Democrat participants, 95 percent say they support Fetterman, and 87 percent of Republicans back Oz, who has former President...

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) holds a lead of 15 percentage points over Republican challenger Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.), according to an Emerson College/Pix11/The Hill survey released on Friday. The poll found that 50 percent of somewhat and very likely voters polled said they would support Hochul when asked who they would vote for if the election for governor was held today. Zeldin, meanwhile, received 35 percent.

Democrat Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) leads her Republican opponent Tiffany Smiley by under three points in deep blue Washington state. According to new polling from Trafalgar Group, Murray, who has been serving since 1993, only leads Smiley by 2.9 points.

New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D) is slightly leading Republican challenger Mark Ronchetti in the state’s gubernatorial race, a new poll finds. A poll by the Research & Polling Inc. for the Albuquerque Journal shows that Grisham leads with 47 percent to Ronchetti’s 40 percent with a margin of error of +/- 4.3 percentage points. The poll surveyed more than 500 voters and was conducted from August 19 through August 25.

Democrats inched ahead of Republicans on FiveThirtyEight’s generic congressional ballot average on August 10 — less than four months from the midterm election night. FiveThirtyEight updated their generic congressional ballot average on Wednesday to show Democrats have a slight advantage over Republicans. The average showed generic Democrats with an average of 44.2 percent and generic Republicans with an average of 44 percent. The average from FiveThirtyEight looks at polls from Morning Consult, Rasmussen Reports, Ipsos, Data for Progress, and YouGov.

Republicans continue to lead Democrats and gain momentum on the generic congressional ballot in the latest Rasmussen Reports survey, after a slight dip last week following a recent school shooting in Texas and the gun rights battle. As the Republicans look to retake control of Congress in the 2022 midterm elections only 158 days away, the most recent Rasmussen Reports survey showed the GOP expanded the lead by two points after a slight three-point dip from last week.

Republicans have increased their lead to seven points over Democrats on a generic ballot, according to the most recent Fox News poll. If the midterm elections were held today, 46 percent of voters would support the Republican candidate compared to just 39 percent for the Democrat candidate in their congressional district.

(Richmond, Virginia - April 12, 2022) - By signing sound money legislation yesterday, Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin has ended Virginia’s discriminatory practice of assessing sales taxes on smaller purchases of gold, silver, platinum, and palladium bullion and coins. Virginia’s House Bill 936, originally introduced by Del. Amanda Batten, was considered by multiple House and Senate committees before passing overwhelmingly out of both chambers and reaching the governor’s desk. Virginia had been one of only seven states in the United States maintaining merely a partial sales tax exemption on purchases of precious metals. Virginia’s regressive practice of taxing only purchases under...

Yahalom-Mack adds that her team was surprised to trace the ingots to Sardinia, which is “beyond the western Mediterranean, beyond the [Cypriots’] regular route of trade, which is Egypt, the Levant, Anatolia and the Aegean.” Though Cyprus was once considered a passive player in the Bronze Age metal trade, simply producing copper for other countries, more recent research has painted a portrait of a “small but agile nation with both formal and informal trade ties that may well have helped fill the power vacuum that occurred with the collapse of entranced empires around 1200 B.C.E.,” per the Times of Israel.Divers...

ST. LOUIS (AP) — The Biden administration issued guidance to states on Tuesday that it said will ensure the country’s largest-ever investment in water infrastructure doesn’t bypass disadvantaged communities that are disproportionately affected by environmental hazards like pollution. The Environmental Protection Agency’s guidance memo applies to $43 billion from the infrastructure bill for making drinking water cleaner, improving sewage treatment and replacing lead pipes. The agency said the memo helps the Biden Administration meet its goal of addressing environmental needs in communities that often have high rates of poverty and unemployment. The money will be distributed over five years and...

Exposure to leaded gasoline lowered the IQ of about half the population of the United States, a new study estimates. The peer-reviewed study, published Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, focuses on people born before 1996 — the year the U.S. banned gas containing lead. Overall, the researchers from Florida State University and Duke University found, childhood lead exposure cost America an estimated 824 million points, or 2.6 points per person on average. Certain cohorts were more affected than others. For people born in the 1960s and the 1970s, when leaded gas consumption was skyrocketing,...