
By Leann Ray | Editor-in-chief
🗳️🇺🇸 Happy Election Day, West Virginia! 🗳️🇺🇸 Polls are open from 6:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. If you haven’t voted yet, check out our voter guide before you head to the polls today.
“The documents that are requested, the deadlines — if that’s not streamlined, then you’ll likely see more eligible people lose their assistance, both of SNAP and Medicaid.” — Sean O’Leary, senior policy analyst at the West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy

A sign advertises that SNAP benefits are accepted at a Hornbacher’s in north Fargo, North Dakota, on July 7, 2026. (Photo by Ceilidh Kern/For the North Dakota Monitor)
By Lori Kersey
Many low-income state residents will soon be required to meet two sets of work requirements — one to keep healthcare and another for food assistance — according to an analysis from the West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy.

Lockers in a Kanawha County school in West Virginia. (Photo by Lexi Browning/West Virginia Watch)
By Amelia Ferrell Knisely
West Virginia officials are asking the state Supreme Court to wait until next spring to consider a lawsuit that alleges inadequate public school funding.

Exposure to mixed coal mine dust that contains silica — a carcinogen — can lead to the development of pneumoconiosis, commonly known as black lung disease. (Getty Images)
By Henry Culvyhouse
The United Mine Workers of America and 52 miners have filed a lawsuit against the state Board of Coal Mine Health and Safety, asking it pass a limit on the amount of silica dust being produced in coal mines.
NATIONAL

A group of Maine residents protest a proposed electricity price increase ahead of an October 2025 public hearing in Freeport. Rising utility prices are increasingly drawing scrutiny from voters and state officials. (Photo by AnnMarie Hilton/Maine Morning Star)
By Kevin Hardy
As broad affordability concerns define elections across the country, voters in several states on Tuesday will have a say on their future utility bills.
By Jonathan Shorman
The U.S. Department of Justice on Monday asked the U.S. Supreme Court to require California to set aside the ballots of suspected noncitizen voters in a last-ditch appeal by the Trump administration to exert control over the state’s vote counting.
By Ashley Murray and Jonathan Shorman
WASHINGTON — When the polls close Tuesday night, the 2026 U.S. election will go down as one of history’s most expensive and extraordinarily ugly midterms — galvanizing record-breaking early voter turnout among a deeply divided electorate.
By Jonathan Shorman
American democracy faces one of its biggest stress tests of the modern era, as President Donald Trump’s sprawling campaign for power over elections encounters a firewall of judges, state election workers and voting rights leaders heading into Election Day.
COMMENTARY

cutline (Photo by Name/Newsroom)
By Jack Bernard
A survey has come out which shows that Trump is underwater in almost every state. East of the Mississippi River, Trump is only above water in Alabama and West Virginia. In West Virginia, he has a positive favorability rating with 48% of state residents versus a negative rating with 41%.
ICYMI
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