Former Ohio Gov. Bob Taft described himself as “a conservative” while declaring his plan to vote for incumbent Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown in the Buckeye State’s 2024 U.S. Senate race.

Taft, who served as governor from early 1999 through early 2007, is the great-grandson of the late President William Howard Taft, who, years after his presidency, went on to serve as chief justice of the Supreme Court, making history as the only person ever to serve in both of those prestigious positions.

“I have always run for office under the banner of the Republican Party, am a conservative and usually vote a straight Republican ticket. Although still a Republican, I will be making an exception this year in Ohio’s U.S. Senate race by supporting Sherrod Brown,” Taft wrote in a piece posted by the Dayton Daily News.

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“In doing so, I will be joining most voters who make judgments about candidates based not just on party affiliation but, often more importantly, on the candidate and his or her character, experience and expertise,” he continued.

Taft noted that he does not agree with Brown on all policy issues, but believes “Ohioans very much need a highly effective, experienced advocate in the U.S. Senate – someone who is squarely focused on both Ohio’s and America’s needs. This is the kind of leader Sherrod Brown has been.”

Brown, who has served in the Senate since 2007, is facing a challenge from Republican candidate Bernie Moreno. 

VULNERABLE DEM SENATOR TIED TO ‘RADICAL GROUPS’ WORKING TO CLOSE MASSIVE POWER PLANT IN SWING STATE

Brown acknowledged the endorsement on social media, noting, “Bob Taft is the only guy to beat me in an election. Despite our political differences, I’m grateful to have his support in this race.”

Taft defeated Brown in the 1990 Ohio secretary of state contest.

OHIO GOP SENATE CHALLENGER REACTS TO POLLS SHOWING DEAD HEAT IN CRITICAL SENATE RACE: ‘RADICAL LIBERAL’

Currently, Ohio’s other U.S. Senator, J.D. Vance, is former President Donald Trump’s 2024 running mate in the 2024 presidential contest.

An anonymous Republican senator has reportedly expressed concern about 91-year-old Sen. Chuck Grassely, R-Iowa, reclaiming his position as chair of the powerful Senate Judiciary Committee should the GOP take control of the upper chamber.

Whether Donald Trump or Kamala Harris wins in November, the next Senate Judiciary Committee Chair could oversee several Supreme Court nominations and other judicial picks.

The unnamed GOP senator, who sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee, spoke to Punchbowl News on condition of anonymity, questioning Grassley’s ability to strongly combat against the committee’s highest ranking Democrat, Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, as well as a White House led by Harris. 

“Chuck is extremely sharp. A lot of it is just his disposition — he’s not a knife fighter. He’s just too genteel for that,” the senator said. “I’ve watched Durbin operate, and he is good at his job. He will not hesitate.”

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Though several senators and aides reportedly doubt Grassley’s ability as a “fighter” to take on likely attacks on future Trump Supreme Court nominations, Punchbowl News said their concern was not the same as what the Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., faced. She stepped down as the committee’s top Democrat in 2020. 

Progressives shredded Feinstein’s handling of the nominations of Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, and the senator also faced questions about her mental fitness. 

Another GOP senator told Punchbowl News that Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito possibly could retire next year, and Democrats have worried about Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s health.

“The stakes are going to be high,” that senator told Punchbowl News. 

Those who defend Grassley note how the nonagenarian guided prior Trump Supreme Court nominations through their Senate confirmation hearings despite intense backlash from Democrats and other groups. 

They also credit the eight-term senator for the current Supreme Court conservative majority, as Grassley and other GOP senators in 2016 decided to forgo the hearings needed to advance Merrick Garland’s nomination to the high court. That effort, however, was largely led by then-Majority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.

“No one is better prepared to lead the Senate Judiciary Committee than Senator Grassley,” Clare Slattery, a spokesperson for Grassley, told Fox News Digital. “He has a proven track record of success, having confirmed an historic number of constitutionally-sound judges, and he continues to set the gold standard for congressional oversight and investigations.”

“Simply put, nobody outworks Chuck Grassley,” she said. “Senator Grassley looks forward to continuing to deliver on his rock solid conservative record as Judiciary Chairman in the next Republican Senate Majority.”

SQUAD MEMBER CALLS FOR ‘RADICALLY’ CHANGING THE SUPREME COURT: ‘SCOTUS REFORM IS ON THE BALLOT IN NOVEMBER’

“Even at age 91, Grassley runs circles around his colleagues,” Mike Davis, Grassley’s former chief counsel for nominations, told Punchbowl News. “It is wishful thinking if people think he’s not going to be the next Republican chair of Senate Judiciary. Trump will be very happy it’s Grassley because Grassley has proven he’s very effective for Trump.”

“Would any other senator have been able to do what Grassley did?” Michael Zona, a former top Grassley aide, said to Punchbowl News. “Has anyone had more success in confirming judges than Grassley? Who else has demonstrated they won’t buckle under political pressure more than Grassley?”

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., the current ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, is second in seniority to Grassley, who right now is the highest ranking Republican on the Senate Budget Committee. 

Graham, who some conservatives fear as a potential chair of the Judiciary Committee given his record of voting for Democrat judicial picks, told Punchbowl News on Monday he holds “all the confidence in the world in Sen. Grassley’s ability to chair the Senate Judiciary Committee.”

Election night is two weeks away. As Vice President Harris and former President Trump dash to the finish line, this week’s forecast looks at their outreach efforts and the latest evidence of a smaller divide between national and state polling. 

Plus, rankings changes in six competitive House districts.

Last week’s Power Rankings showed that both parties’ coalitions have changed meaningfully since 2020.

For Democrats, the chief concern is that Harris still has fewer Black voters in her corner than President Biden.

To help fix that problem, the campaign dispatched its strongest surrogate, former President Obama, to Arizona and Nevada, and Harris spent an hour with Charlamagne Tha God to talk about policy, race, and religion.

The Vice President also went head-to-head with Fox News’ Bret Baier, part of an effort by her campaign to frame the candidate as tough and pragmatic. It was Harris’ highest-profile interview yet, but it will take another week before the effects show up in polls.

Meanwhile, Trump’s coalition has fewer women than in the last election, so the former President participated in a town hall with Fox News’ Harris Faulkner and an all-female audience.

Trump also continues to search for young and working-class voters. His appearance at a local McDonald’s in Pennsylvania produced some compelling imagery and was designed to paint Trump as an energetic and likable candidate.

FOX NEWS POWER RANKINGS: HARRIS LOSES HER LEAD AND A NEW ELECTORATE EMERGES

Right-wing voters with reservations about Trump could also make the difference on election night. 

That is why Harris spent the beginning of the week with Republican former congresswoman Liz Cheney, who urged conservatives to vote for the Democratic ticket this year. It also explains why there are rumblings about Nikki Haley joining Trump on the campaign trail.

Two polls of the national popular vote released last week show a uniquely tight race. Suffolk has Harris one point ahead of Trump at 50% to 49%; the Fox News Poll has Trump up by two, with the former president at 50% and Harris at 48%.

Results like that should make this Trump’s race to lose. 

In 2020, Biden won the national vote by 4.5 points (51%-47%). That translated to very thin margins of victory in the battleground states. The president won Georgia, for example, by 0.2 points, and his largest victory in any battleground was by 2.8 points in Michigan.

Close national polls should therefore put Trump in the lead in the battlegrounds. But the statewide polls are close too.

A new set of polls show Harris ahead by 2-4 points in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Georgia, a tied race in Nevada, and Trump ahead by 3 in Arizona and North Carolina (Washington Post/Schar).

The Power Rankings call all those states toss-ups.

Last week, the same Fox poll that put Trump ahead by two points nationally had Harris up six points among voters who live in the battleground states (52%-46%, with a 6.5-point subgroup margin of error).

Trump’s advantage primarily came from a larger share in counties he won by more than 10 points in 2020 (64-35%) than Harris had in counties Biden won by more than 10 points (58-39%).

A TRUMP MYSTERY MAKES ELECTION OUTCOME EVEN MURKIER

The results suggest that Trump could be banking “inefficient vote.” In other words, while the former president is performing better nationally than he was four years ago, the gains are concentrated in places he is already winning, like Florida, or rural counties.

While Harris may have lost some ground in safe Democratic states like New York, she remains competitive in the battlegrounds that decide the presidential election.

Other polls have raised the same question, but the most compelling evidence comes from the midterms.

Republicans received about 3 million more votes than Democrats in the national House vote (Cook), but eked out a balance of power win, with 222 seats to Democrats’ 213.

Put another way, the GOP banked a lot of votes in areas where it didn’t need them, and just enough in the battleground House races that would give them victory (a problem that has plagued the Democrats in the national vote for years).

The polls are all within the margin of error, and this is just one theory about the direction of the race. But on election night, a Trump blowout in Florida or a narrower spread in Virginia may not mean the race is over.

The House is still a toss-up, with 208 seats in the Republican columns, 205 for the Democrats, and 22 districts that could go either way.

In today’s forecast, six races move to new categories:

First, New York’s 17th district, in the Hudson Valley, is home to one of the most competitive races on the map. Incumbent GOP Rep. Mike Lawler has a strong bipartisan brand in a centrist district. While Democratic challenger and former Rep. Mondaire Jones has tried to head in the same direction, he’s still dogged by his previous support for defunding the police and a spat with the Working Families Party (Jones will not appear on the ballot under that party’s name, though the party is now telling voters to support him anyway). This race moves from Toss Up to Lean R.

New York’s 1st district, home to both the Hamptons and rural farmland on Long Island, remains a competitive race between Republican Rep. Nick LaLota and the Democrat, former CNN anchor John Avlon. But the majority of this district’s voters backed Trump in 2020 and 2016, and Avlon has faced questions over the extent of his residency in the district. The race moves from Lean R to Likely R.

In the battleground Rust Belt states, a pair of districts held by pro-Trump Republicans have become even more competitive. First, Wisconsin’s 3rd district flipped to Rep. Derrick Van Orden in the midterms by a tight margin. The incumbent’s presence at the U.S. Capitol during the January 6 riots is a theme in his opponent’s ads. This race moves from Likely R to Lean R.

Meanwhile, Pennsylvania’s 10th district has been held by Freedom Caucus Rep. Scott Perry since 2013. Perry is the only sitting member of Congress whose cellphone was seized by the FBI in its investigation into efforts to illegally overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, and that has also become a theme in television ads. It moves from Lean R to Toss Up.

Nevada’s 3rd district is still the best opportunity for Republicans to flip a seat in the Silver State, but a hotly competitive presidential race hasn’t so far translated into downballot success, particularly in the Senate race. This district almost touches Las Vegas, and includes Henderson. That’s favorable territory for Democratic Rep. Susie Lee in this Biden-majority district. She faces Republican Drew Johnson. It moves from Lean D to Likely D.

Finally, a sleeper race to watch in the northeast: Maryland’s 6th district, where Democrat April McClain Delaney faces Republican Neil Parrott. This should be safe territory for the left, but the party is investing here, and even made it part of one of its frontline programs. It moves from Solid D to Likely D.

As an anxious electorate counts down to election night, the political class is filling the void with data. Some numbers are more useful than others.

Harris dominates in fundraising and the ground game. Her campaign raised more than $1 billion this quarter and more than double what Trump raised in the last month, and Democrats have a much stronger get-out-the-vote operation. These are important advantages. In a tight race, they may get Harris over the line. On the other hand, Trump has won with deficits in both areas.

Comparing early vote figures to previous cycles is generally unhelpful. We expect fewer Americans to vote early, Democrats and Republicans are less likely to be divided on how they cast ballots, and breakdowns tell us the party registration of some voters, not how they voted.

Finally, since internal polls survey the same electorate as any other poll, they’re unlikely to produce a clearly different result. When they do, people should question whether the poll is an outlier, or whether the campaign that paid for the poll has a motive to characterize the race differently. 

Early voting is underway in every state, with more than fifteen million voters now casting a ballot.

Next week, check back for the final Power Rankings forecast.

Former President Donald Trump holds a slight lead over Vice President Kamala Harris in the key swing state of Georgia, according to a new poll.

The poll, conducted by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and the University of Georgia, found Trump at 47% support in the state, compared to Harris’ 43%. A sizable 8% of respondents said they remain undecided, however.

The Georgia poll surveyed 1,000 of the state’s likely voters from Oct. 7-16. The poll advertises a margin of error of 3.1%.

The poll further found that 60% of respondents say the country is on the wrong track, and their top issues were inflation/cost of living (19%), the economy/jobs (17%), preserving democracy (17%), immigration (14%) and abortion (8%).

GEORGIA SHATTERS EARLY VOTING RECORDS AS CAMPAIGNS ENTER HOME STRETCH IN BATTLEGROUND STATE

The poll comes as Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger is facing pressure to release the results of a voter roll audit he announced this summer.

HARRIS INVOKES JIMMY CARTER IN BID TO GET SUPPORTERS TO VOTE EARLY

“Millions of illegal immigrants have flooded our country since 2021, and it’s well-documented that thousands of them have successfully registered to vote in multiple states. But even with early voting now underway, Georgia voters are still waiting for confirmation that non-citizens are not casting ballots in our elections,” former Sen. Kelly Loeffler, who now serves as the chairwoman for the group behind the effort, Greater Georgia, said in a release obtained exclusively by Fox News Digital.

The comments come more than three months after Raffensperger announced the state was conducting a “SAVE audit” of noncitizens who may have registered to vote, which he called a “vital step in maintaining election security and integrity in Georgia.”

“We are double-checking to make sure that if any non-citizens attempt to register to vote, they will not be able to vote unless they prove that they are U.S. citizens,” Raffensberger said in a release at the time, which also warned of prison sentences of up to 10 years and fines of up to $100,000 for noncitizens who register to vote in the state.

Raffensperger told NewsNation just a few weeks later that the audit was complete, boasting that he could promise residents of the state that “only American citizens are voting.”

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Reached for comment by Fox News Digital, a spokesperson for the Georgia Secretary of State’s office said that Raffensperger will hold a press conference on Wednesday to announce the results of the audit.

Fox News’ Michael Lee contributed to this report.

Vice President Harris has raised some eyebrows over potential conflicts of interest related to the substantial support her presidential run has received from individuals and entities engaged in active business dealings before the federal government.

The Harris campaign tapped law firm Covington & Burling to help vet Harris’ potential running mates and advise the campaign’s transition team. The law firm, which also provided the Harris campaign with financial support and experienced attorneys to defend it, is currently challenging the ban on TikTok in the U.S. passed by Congress and signed by President Biden.

One significant supporter of Harris’ campaign includes Chris Larsen, angel investor and co-founder of cryptocurrency firm Ripple Labs. Larsen, who has given Harris’ campaign committees nearly $12 million, is currently in a protracted legal battle with the Securities and Exchange Commission over whether its cryptocurrency, XRP, should be classified as “securities.” Meanwhile, $1 million of Larsen’s money to the Harris campaign was made in the form of his XRP cryptocurrency.

These are among the handful of examples that elucidate potential conflicts of interest that legal experts say don’t necessarily amount to anything illegal, but do raise questions about Harris’ judgment. 

EPIC CLASH: PRESSED BY FOX NEWS, KAMALA HARRIS COMES OUT SWINGING

“To establish a violation of law — in the main, bribery — prosecutors would really have to prove a quid pro quo,” Andrew McCarthy, a senior fellow at the National Review Institute and a contributing editor for National Review’s online print publication, told Fox News Digital. “These situations are in the capacious category of arrangements that are ethically troubling, and that could be politically damaging depending on how they play out, but that are probably not legally actionable.”

Last week, attorneys from Covington & Burling and other major D.C. law firms, such as Paul, Weiss LLP, hosted a pricey Washington, D.C., fundraiser for Harris. Among the attorneys present were Weiss’ Karen Dunn, Bill Isaacson and Jeannie Rhee, who are currently defending Google in federal court against the Biden-Harris Justice Department. Additionally, the Harris camp tapped Dunn ahead of the September presidential debate to help Harris prep.

“It’s a conflict of interest if the government is indebted to opposing counsel,” Jeff Hauser, executive director of the Revolving Door Project, told the New York Post after it reported on the fundraiser. “That’s why attorneys should not be allowed to negotiate potential settlements with the Department of Justice if they served as active bundlers, including fundraiser hosts, for that administration.”

LAWYER DEFENDING GOOGLE IN DOJ CASE PREPPING HARRIS FOR DEBATE IS ‘CONFLICT OF INTEREST,’ JORDAN INVESTIGATES

Hans von Spakovsky, manager of the Heritage Foundation’s Election Law Reform Initiative, said fundraisers like the one held for Harris last week do “raise concerns about the judgment of some of the people involved,” but Spakovsky also echoed McCarthy’s remarks that there was likely nothing legally actionable.

“If you are helping a political figure who is the boss of a federal prosecutor who is involved in a case with you, I mean that – to me – does clearly raise a conflict of interest,” Spakovsky argued. “Because if the prosecutors then go easy on your client, there’s always going to be a question of, well, ‘Did they do that because the prosecutors’ ultimate boss in the White House told them to go easy on the defense counsel’s client.”

“It may not look good and raises concerns about the judgment of some of the people involved,” Spakovsky concluded. “But I don’t see a legal problem.”  

Uber general counsel and Harris’ brother-in-law, Tony West, was also present at last week’s fundraiser, alongside Democrat bigwigs like Eric Holder, a longtime Covington & Burling partner, and former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates. Holder and West are reportedly in the running to be in Harris’ Cabinet if she wins next month.

Fox News Digital reached out to the Harris campaign for comment but did not receive a response by press time. 

U.S.-based Jewish organizations are working to get out the vote among Americans living in Israel ahead of the November election, which comes weeks after the one-year anniversary of the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attacks. 

Nathan Diament, the executive director of public policy for the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, said his organization has coordinated with the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem and partnered with Yeshiva University, a private Orthodox Jewish university in New York, on outreach instructing young Americans taking their gap years in Israel on how to request their absentee ballots and vote from abroad.

“First of all, it’s important, from our point of view, for every American citizen, no matter where they are, to hopefully participate in the election,” Diament told Fox News Digital. “You know, this past year has obviously been a very intense, serious and historic year in terms of what’s going on in Israel as it continues to battle against Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran itself. We have friends and family who are there, whose lives are really on the line. And so it’s really important for Americans there who have the right to vote to, again, participate, because the United States is Israel’s most important ally.”

He estimated that there are a few thousand Jewish Americans currently in Israel taking their gap year, typically done between high school and college. His own son is one of those students this year.

SMALL SWING IN JEWISH VOTERS TO GOP COULD BE ‘DECISIVE’ IN KEY BATTLEGROUND STATES

The Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America (or Orthodox Union), which represents more than 1,000 Orthodox Jewish synagogues around the U.S. as well as several hundred Jewish K-12 schools, also works on educational resources targeting another demographic – the few hundred thousand Jewish American immigrants who permanently relocated to Israel – so they, too, can participate in the 2024 election. 

The deadline to request absentee ballots is approaching for several battleground states. Of the about 420,000 Jewish Pennsylvanians, Diament said that some studying or living in Israel “could have an impact on the vote” in their communities around Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and even Scranton.

“Joe Biden won Pennsylvania in the last election by an 80,000 vote margin,” Diament said. “So, you know, a shift in the American Jewish vote in Pennsylvania by, you know, several thousand or 10,000 or more votes could be very, very significant in this election.” 

The U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem in January urged Americans living in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza to check their voter registration to provide for enough time to participate in the upcoming 2024 federal elections. As the U.S. does not offer in-person voting at embassies or consulates abroad, U.S. citizens are encouraged to vote by absentee ballot if they cannot meet their state’s in-person voting requirements. 

TRUMP SUGGESTS HE COULD WIN 50% OF JEWISH VOTE IN PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION SHOWDOWN AGAINST HARRIS

At the time, the embassy noted how “many U.S. federal elections for the House of Representatives and Senate have been decided by a margin smaller than the number of ballots cast by absentee voters.” 

The U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem said all states are required to count every absentee ballot “that is valid and reaches local election officials by the absentee ballot receipt deadline.”

A spokesperson for the U.S. State Department told Fox News Digital that U.S. citizens living outside the United States can register to vote and vote absentee while living overseas. Students living overseas for an extended period during an election season need to vote absentee and complete a Federal Post Card Application at FVAP.gov to request an absentee ballot, the spokesperson said, adding that voting residency will continue to be the student’s last legal residence prior to leaving the U.S. to study abroad.

The State Department spokesperson said U.S. citizens voting from overseas should check FVAP.gov for their state’s deadlines and more information about how to return their ballot.

“An American living abroad can most easily request an absentee ballot either through the team that we have set up at our center in Jerusalem or, again, they could go to the U.S. embassy or consulate in Jerusalem or Tel Aviv,” Diament said. “And as long as you show your ID and you get your absentee ballot appropriately, then you just need to send it in a timely way. It’s really not that complicated.” 

Jeremy Kazzaz, executive director of the Beacon Coalition, a nonprofit focused on getting out the Jewish vote locally on the ground in Pittsburgh, said U.S. citizens, whether traveling out of state or abroad during an election season, should send their absentee ballots as soon as possible to be included in initial counts.

“The mail system gets bogged down around election time because it’s not just all the ballots that are going through the mail, but it is the 5 billion pieces of political mail that everybody is getting on a day-to-day basis,” Kazzaz told Fox News Digital. “And then you add to that the chaos and disruptions of multiple hurricanes going through the Eastern Seaboard at this time. And so the best practice is to do all of this as early as humanly possible.”

While Diament said it is confidential which candidates who members of the Orthodox Union support, he pointed to polling done by Israeli outlets and pollsters on the ground among Israelis and Americans as signaling a shift toward Republican Donald Trump, especially in the wake of the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks.

“You know, frankly, that is not matched in the American Jewish population as a whole. The American Jewish population, by and large, is pretty liberal. And so, traditionally, the Democrat wins a majority, sometimes a very, very large majority. But we’ve done polling and others have done polling this year among American Jews here in the United States,” Diament said. “What we’ve seen, at least so far, is that while Kamala Harris as the Democratic candidate is ahead among the American Jewish vote in general, she’s not ahead by as large a margin as the Democratic candidate, you know, has been traditionally.”

Diament argued that rising antisemitism in the U.S. could be one contributing factor.

“It’s a different kind of election in the wake of what’s going on over the past year for American Jews,” Diament said. “We’ve seen the terrible surge in antisemitism in the aftermath of the Oct. 7th terrorist attacks. And that’s another dimension, which American Jews have to really stand up and hold government officials accountable and make sure that they are being responsive to us, to make sure we’re guaranteed our rights of freedom of religion in this country.” 

Regarding his son and his sons’ friends taking their gap year in Israel, Diament said that “in some ways, they feel more comfortable and secure than some of their friends who are on some American university campuses.” 

“Their lives are not being threatened, obviously, the way people on the ground in Israel are by foreign militaries,” he said. “But there are a lot of campuses where young American Jews are really being … psychologically threatened and personally threatened.”

The Arkansas Supreme Court ruled Monday that voters will not be allowed to weigh in on a ballot measure to expand medical marijuana in the state, arguing that the initiative failed to fully explain what it entails.

In a 4-3 decision, the justices threw out the initiative just two weeks before the election, according to The Associated Press. It is too late to remove the measure from the ballot, as early voting began on Monday, so the court instructed election officials not to count any votes on the initiative.

The proposed constitutional amendment would have expanded the definition of medical professionals who can certify patients for medical cannabis, added qualifying conditions and made medical cannabis cards valid for three years.

The court ruled the Arkansas Medical Marijuana Amendment of 2024 did not fully inform voters that it would have removed the authority of the state Legislature to change the 2016 constitutional amendment that legalized medical marijuana in the state.

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“This decision doomed the proposed ballot title, and it is plainly misleading,” Justice Shawn Womack wrote in the majority opinion.

The court also said the initiative did not inform voters that the amendment would legalize up to an ounce of marijuana possession for any purpose if marijuana were legalized at the federal level.

Organizers of the initiative said in court filings that the ballot measure did cite the number of provisions that would be repealed and argued that previous court rulings said measures did not need to summarize the current law that would be amended.

Justice Cody Hiland said in a dissent that the court was ignoring decades-long precedent by ruling the measure’s language was misleading.

“Long ago, this court established definitive standards for evaluating the sufficiency of popular names and ballot titles,” Hiland wrote. “This court has not deviated from those standards until today.”

The court also rejected election officials’ reasons for ruling the measure’s organizers fell short of the signatures needed for placing the measure on the ballot.

EARLY IN-PERSON VOTING BEGINS FOR ALASKA, ARKANSAS, CONNECTICUT, IDAHO, NORTH DAKOTA, SOUTH CAROLINA, TEXAS

Arkansans for Patient Access, the group behind the measure, said it would continue its push to expand the medical marijuana program and that the signatures it gathered displayed widespread support.

“We are deeply disappointed in the Court’s decision,” the group said in a statement. “It seems politics has triumphed over legal precedent.”

The group filed a lawsuit after Arkansas Secretary of State John Thurston said it fell short of the signatures required to qualify for the ballot. The issue over the ballot measure’s language was raised by Protect Arkansas Kids, a group that opposed the measure and intervened in the case.

Thurston’s office had refused to count some of the signatures submitted, claiming the group had not followed paperwork rules about paid signature gatherers.

Earlier this year, the state rejected petitions submitted in favor of a pro-life ballot measure on similar grounds.

In July, the state said the group had fallen short of the required signatures for the medical marijuana measure but qualified for 30 additional days to circulate petitions. The state then told the group that any additional signatures gathered by paid signature gatherers would not be counted if required information was submitted by the canvassing company rather than the measure’s sponsors.

The court said Monday that this decision was wrong, arguing that state law allows a wide range of people to be considered sponsors of the measure.

Other groups had been campaigning against the measure, even as it was unclear whether it would be on the ballot next month. The Family Council Action Committee announced last week it planned to launch a statewide tour opposing the measure.

“A measure this bad simply has no business being on the ballot or in the constitution,” the committee’s director, Jerry Cox, said after Monday’s ruling.

About half of U.S. states allow recreational marijuana and a dozen more have legalized medical marijuana. In November, voters in Florida, North Dakota and South Dakota will decide whether to legalize recreational marijuana for adults, while two measures on medical marijuana will be on ballots in Nebraska.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Former President Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, has opened up a sizable advantage in the election betting odds in recent weeks, giving Americans a new way of trying to piece together what might happen come Election Day.

“More than two billion dollars have been bet on the election already,” Maxim Lott, who runs ElectionBettingOdds.com, told Fox News Digital.

The comments come as Lott’s website, which uses data from five different betting sites to display a betting average, shows Trump has a 58.5% chance of winning the presidential election as of Monday.

Lott’s website isn’t the only one tracking the betting odds, with popular sites such as RealClearPolitics, which has become known over the years for tracking polling averages, joining the fray.

TRUMP OPENS UP LARGEST BETTING LEAD SINCE DAYS AFTER BIDEN’S DROPOUT

Like ElectionBettingOdds.com, the RealClearPolitics betting average shows Trump as the favorite with a 59% chance to win the election as of Monday.

Trump’s chances of winning the election have dramatically risen over the last few weeks, with his Democrat opponent, Vice President Harris, being the betting favorite on RealClearPolitics as recently as Oct. 4. But Trump took the lead the next day and hasn’t looked back, eventually rising to the nearly 20 percentage-point advantage the former president enjoyed on Monday.

For Lott, looking at betting averages gives people a much clearer picture of what the most likely outcome of the election is compared to trying to piece together polls.

“These are really accurate, they’re more accurate than just trying to look at polls or especially more accurate than listening to pundits bloviating,” Lott said.

“[The bettors] look at all sorts of historical data, they look at trends,” he added. “I find the percent more useful than the polls.”

CHECK OUT THE LATEST FOX NEWS POWER RANKINGS IN THE 2024 ELECTION

Lott, who previously served as a program executive producer for the Fox Business Network, also noted that people risk their own money to make a bet on an outcome, creating a market that has the ability to “discipline people” who get it wrong.

“If you’re not very smart, or very biased, you’re going to lose your money pretty quickly, and then maybe you won’t bet again next election,” Lott said.

While betting on elections is newer than more well-known gambling pastimes such as sports betting and casino games, Lott said the market has become robust enough to offer election followers a glimpse into what the most likely outcome will be.

“Last cycle we had more than a billion dollars traded. That’s still [not] that much if you compare it to … the stock market or something, but it’s enough that we have a reliable indicator, and that’s what [is] important to us as users who just want to know what’s going to happen,” Lott said.

As for Trump’s lead, Lott said it likely reflects an end to the “honeymoon period” Harris enjoyed after being elevated as the Democrat nominee, noting that Trump had risen to around 70% likely to win the election before President Biden dropped his bid for re-election and has bounced back into the lead once again.

“Things have kind of reverted back to the mean where – it is a tough cycle for Democrats with things like inflation and immigration, and so maybe for a couple months people were like, ‘Oh, Harris, this is interesting, this is new, this is refreshing,’ and then it’s kind of sinking in: ‘This is the same administration we didn’t like with Biden,” Lott said.

Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.

TOLEDO – Ohio GOP State Rep. Derek Merrin, who is running for Congress against vulnerable Democrat incumbent Marcy Kaptur, spoke to Fox News Digital about why the issues affecting Northwest Ohioans in 2024 are putting Kaptur’s 41-year tenure in Congress in jeopardy.

“Northwest Ohio has been left behind for many years because of Marcy Kaptur and Marcy Kaptur’s values do not represent northwest Ohio,” Merrin told Fox News Digital at the Lucas County GOP Headquarters about why he decided to enter the race to try to unseat the longtime Democratic congresswoman. 

“I felt there’s a real opportunity to win this race. There’s a real opportunity to change and I really believe that the future of our country is at stake and we have to stop the liberal policies of Joe Biden and Marcy Kaptur of the Democratic Party to save our country.”

Kaptur, currently serving her 21st term in Congress representing Ohio’s 9th Congressional District, is considered one of the most vulnerable Democrats in the House. While the Cook Political Report ranks her race as “Lean Democrat,” redistricting following the 2020 census has Republicans believing the seat is a prime opportunity to ensure control of the House and that they can flip the seat.

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Merrin told Fox News Digital that he expects a significant number of Independents, and some Democrats, to support his candidacy pointing to the “ineffectiveness” of Congress and unpopular Democrat policies.

“The vast majority of Americans are fed up with the Democratic Party but guess what?” Merrin said. “Not everyone’s a Republican. People want policy. They want to lower the cost of living. They want secure borders, and they’re tired of the political class. I’m going to pick up votes from Democrats. I’ll pick up a lot of votes from independents because my message and policies are aligned with what they want to see happen.”

“They want to pay less money at the pump. They want their health insurance to go down. They want their housing costs to go down. They want their insurance costs to go down. They want to be able to take their family out to eat for under $100 every time they go out to eat. And I’m going to work on policies that are going to get our country moving again, that are going to bring back American jobs and to lower the cost of living and to secure our border.” 

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Kaptur is one of eight Democrats running in 2024 in a district that voted for Trump in 2020. Trump won the state of Ohio by 8 points in 2020 and is expected to equal or surpass that in 2024.

“This is a new district,” Merrin said. “This is a Republican-leaning district and Marcy Kaptur’s values are being exposed for what she’s actually done in Washington, D.C. She doesn’t believe anyone should be allowed to drive a gas-powered car. She believes basically everyone needs to pay more taxes. She puts illegal immigrants ahead of United States citizens. And when people realize her record and her failure, she’s been one of the most ineffective Congress people passing legislation in our country. People want change. They’re worse off than they were four years ago, and I think they’re looking for a new change and I’m going to deliver it.” 

Merrin told Fox News Digital that when he goes around his district talking to voters, it’s clear that the economy and inflation are the number one cause for concern.

“The cost of living, I mean, you look, you can’t take a family of four out in northwest Ohio at a restaurant for under $100 and people can’t afford it,” Merrin said. “You look at car insurance, you look at home insurance, you look at the cost of living overall. It’s hurting people and people are very uncertain on where we’re at and they’re looking for policies that are going to lower the cost of living, lower the cost of energy and make their lives better. People want their kids to be able to experience the American dream that they were able to experience. And I think most families believe that’s in jeopardy right now.”

Pro-Merrin ads running on television in northwest Ohio have highlighted Kaptur’s record of voting with the Biden administration 90% of the time, and Kaptur has also faced criticism from Merrin for introducing just 5 bills that have become law in 41 years, which her campaign pushed back on citing hundreds of bills that she has cosponsored.

“Yes, they do,” Merrin told Fox News Digital if voters in his district are in favor of term limits. “People want term limits for members of Congress. I support term limits. I’ve signed a pledge to support legislation that would limit members of Congress in the House to three terms and I think that’s a winning message that’s resonating with voters.”

Merrin also hit Kaptur on illegal immigration and said that Ohioans are “fed up” with the negative consequences stemming from the millions of illegal immigrants who have entered the country over the last four years.

“Crime has surged among our community and a large part of it’s due to illegal immigration,” Merrin said. “I mean, tens of thousands of people are in northwest Ohio here illegally and it’s just we’re tired and fed up with it.”

“We want to put American citizens first. They’re burdening our health care system, our education system and our criminal justice system. And it’s not too much to ask to say, hey, our federal government needs to secure our borders and put American citizens first and Marcy Kaptur, she’s put a knife in the back of the American people, in union workers, allowing illegal immigrants to come in and take their jobs. It’s an outrage. It’s outrageous. She’s not a proponent of the working man in middle class America. She’s doing everything she can to undermine the traditional values of our country in the working class of our country.”

Merrin, who had over 20 supporters at the Lucas County GOP HQ making calls for him on Saturday, told Fox News Digital he is encouraged by the enthusiasm he sees from Republicans voting early in his district and said there is “more enthusiasm” on his side than Kaptur’s.

“Republicans are fired up,” Merrin said. “And people that are fed up with Marcy Kaptur and the Democratic policies are fired up. We got a lot of momentum. Listen, they are pouring millions of dollars against me right now to defeat me and to try to hold me back because they know we’re very close to winning this race.”

In a statement to Fox News Digital, Kaptur’s campaign called Merrin a “puppet” politician and referenced Merrin’s past support for convicted politician Larry Householder.

“Unlike Congresswoman Kaptur, who has stood up to her own party and worked across the aisle to deliver for working families, Derek Merrin is a puppet politician with no spine who sells out working Ohioans to pad his corporate masters’ pockets, including voting to hike energy rates for Ohio families after taking campaign cash from a now-imprisoned politician who Merrin voted to keep in office AFTER he was indicted,” the campaign, who has been running ads with a similar message, said. 

The Merrin campaign responded to those ads over the weekend calling them a “desperate and pathetic attempt to distract voters from Marcy Kaptur’s failed policies.”

Vice President Harris frequently says that if elected she will build a “strong middle class,” even as the Biden administration pushes for an electric vehicle mandate that one economist says is out of step with most middle-class Americans.

“I believe we need to grow our middle class and make sure our economy works for everyone, for people like the people in the neighborhood where I grew up and the hardworking Americans I meet every day across our nation,” Harris said at a campaign event in September. “When we invest in those things that strengthen the middle class – manufacturing, housing, health care, education, small businesses, and our communities – we grow our economy and catalyze the entire country to succeed.”

After becoming the Democrat presidential nominee, Harris said she does not support imposing mandates on electric vehicles. However, the Biden-Harris administration is currently pushing one that an economist says is not practical for the middle class.

“We know just from the facts that middle-class people are rejecting EVs. There are a lot of reasons why that’s happening, why the trend is shifting on EVs, but one of them is the cost. These are $80,000 cars,” Stephen Moore, economist and senior visiting fellow in economics at the Heritage Foundation, told Fox News Digital.

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The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced a final rule in March under the Clean Air Act to set new emissions standards that would require up to two-thirds of new car sales to be electric by 2032. The new standards would affect “light-duty vehicle manufacturers, independent commercial importers, alternative fuel converters, and manufacturers and converters of medium-duty vehicles,” according to the EPA’s final rule.

The rule offers a tax credit of up to $7,500 for qualified purchases, but Moore said that even with the tax credit, EVs are “still out of [middle-class Americans’] price range.”

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“The idea that you’re going to force people to buy $75-, $80- $90,000 cars is going to mean a lot of Americans won’t be able to afford to buy a car if you continue with these mandates,” he said.

Moore added that the Biden-Harris administration mandate, which the House voted to block in September, would prevent those in the middle class from being able to afford a car.

“EVs are cars that wealthy people can afford, but not middle-class people, for the most part. They’ve got these mandates that say eventually 65% of cars are going to be EVs, but you’ve only got half that number of people that want to buy EVS. That means that there’s going to be a shortage of gas cars, which is the cars that middle-class people can afford,” Moore said in an interview with Fox News Digital.

The average electric vehicle costs more than $56,000 as of September 2024, according to Kelley Blue Book, a vehicle valuation firm.

The average middle-class American earns two-thirds or double the median national household income, which stands at $80,610, according to the U.S. Census Bureau via Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED). Given the current median, the middle-class income today ranges from about $53,000 to $160,000.

A Capital One price analysis on electric vehicles reported that EV purchases are “out of reach of anyone bringing home less than about $120,000 per year,” thus excluding most of the middle class from eligibility based on the U.S. Census Bureau via FRED average.

Recent surveys suggest that most middle-class Americans are not currently looking to purchase an electric vehicle.

A Gallup survey released in April found that only 5% of middle-income Americans own an electric vehicle and that 44% would not consider buying one. Additional polling from Pew Research, released in June, found that three in 10 Americans would seriously consider buying an electric vehicle.

“Why are EVs practical for anyone (not just the middle class)? They offer a superior driving experience. They are quieter, smoother and have far superior acceleration,” John Higham, Electric Vehicle Association Board of Directors, argued that electric vehicles can be more practical for middle class citizens.

Higham noted the factor of charging as a main reason every household might not be ready for an electric vehicle. 

“I think most importantly is EVs can be more economical to drive. Note I said “can be.” They can also be more expensive to drive and I see a lot of math tilted to show that later instead of demonstrating the former,” Higham told Fox News Digital. “Then if EVs are nicer to drive and can cost less than a gasoline counterpart, why aren’t they for everyone one? It comes down to charging. If you can charge at home, you are likely a good candidate for an EV. If not, then probably not.”

Fox News Digital reached out to the Harris campaign for comment.