michigan

Donald Trump stayed strong in the south and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio's campaign looked weak, despite high-profile endorsement in the Republican primaries. On the Democratic side, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton won by a large margin over Vermont Sen. Bernard Sanders in Mississippi, continuing her southern dominance, though in Michigan, Sanders pulled out a close win and a stunning upset. And the race continues.  

So what's next for the campaigns and how will they adjust strategies before upcoming debates and important primaries?  

Thousand of children and pregnant women exposed to lead in the drinking water in Flint, Mich., will have access to health care, under an emergency Medicaid expansion announced Thursday.  

The Department of Health and Human Services said the measure would extent Medicaid eligibility to approximately 15,000 children and pregnant women exposed to contaminated water last year, when state and federal officials for months failed to inform the city's residents of elevated levels of lead and bacteria. The agreement would also provide extended coverage for approximately 30,000 Flint residents already eligible for Medicaid. HHS did not say how much the expanded services would cost.  

FLINT, Mich.-- A sign hanging over a shuttered, bricked-over storefront along a main business thoroughfare conveys a message from another time. "Where dreams come true," it says.  

A congressional delegation arriving here Friday will find plenty of evidence that's not how it turned out in one of the nation's most disadvantaged cities. There are broken windows and sagging roofs on the factory workers’ bungalows now, a note on the door of a party supply store saying that it's closed after 18 years, and pamphlets on how to win the lottery are for sale at corner stores in neighborhoods where school supplies are hard to find. Since revelations that more than 9,000 Flint children were poisoned for months by drinking  lead-contaminated water, members of Congress have called the crisis  “Flint’s Katrina.” And like the hurricane that devastated whole neighborhoods in New Orleans, the slow-motion, unnatural disaster here has exposed entrenched poverty and inequality.  

The early primaries usually winnow presidential fields because each one tests aspects of a candidacy, and because only victories keep the money flowing.

But while this Republican field has winnowed, it hasn’t shrunk as much as some would like. Part of the answer involves the existence of super PAC money, which allows a handful of contributors to keep a candidacy alive. But maybe even more important this time is the shape of the field and the nature of the front-runner.  

The White House on Thursday released the much anticipated text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement — a trade deal that will likely play out in a number of top House and Senate contests in 2016, whether or not it's passed by Congress.  

Most of those races are located in the Rust Belt — states where past trade pacts such as the North American Free Trade Agreement from the 1990s are often blamed for the sharp decline in manufacturing jobs that once made the region prosper.  

Voters in a handful of states across the country head to the polls Tuesday for a slate of elections that political handicappers use as an off-year election bellwether of what might happen in 2016.  

And while no federal offices are on the table, results from these states will have implications for House and Senate contests in 2016.  

Democrats need Republican incumbents to retire from competitive districts in order to expand the playing field of competitive House races. But GOP Rep. Dan Benishek’s decision not to run for re-election in Michigan barely moves the status quo of the House battlefield.  

Benishek was already considered vulnerable this cycle, and his 1st District was already counted among the three dozen most competitive races in the country. His narrow re-election victory in 2012 — 48.1-47.6 percent (a margin of 1,881 votes), made him an attractive target. But the seat leans Republican under most conditions.  

With just hours before Election Day, the only question is how good of a night it will be for Republicans.  

In the Senate, the following states have been updated: Colorado, Georgia, Iowa, Kentucky and West Virginia .  

Once a top target for Democrats, Rep. Dan Benishek, a former surgeon turned tea party candidate, has turned a corner in his campaign for a second term, and national Republicans have labeled him one of their "most improved" members of the cycle.  

What happened? A combination of staff changes, leveraging his slot on the Veterans' Affairs Committee, and a favorable cycle for Republicans gave Benishek a clear advantage in the 1st District.