ELECTION/MEDICAID/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “One month before Election Day, about 30 volunteers packed into a home in this northern Idaho town in the heart of Trump country, preparing to knock on doors to build support for a ballot measure to adopt Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion. Luke Mayville, an Idaho native who’s helping to lead the effort to bring more health care to lower income people in his home state, gave a blunt assessment to the activists: ‘It’s a tragedy if we lose,’ he said. ‘If we win, we make history.’ Next month, voters in two other conservative states, Utah and Nebraska, will also decide on Medicaid expansion, and polling suggests they have a good chance of passing. Montana will also vote on keeping its program. Maine voters last year were the first to approve Medicaid expansion through the ballot, although Republican Gov. Paul LePage has done everything possible to block expansion in his final year in office. A few other holdout states — most notably Georgia, Florida and Wisconsin — would also become much more likely to embrace Medicaid expansion if Democrats prevail in gubernatorial contests next month.”
–Paul Demko, “The ballot revolt to bring Medicaid expansion to Trump country,” Politico, October 19, 2018 3:34 pm