The Democratic Party’s voter registration advantage has seen a dip in three key battleground states, namely Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Nevada. This shift could potentially pose a challenge for Vice President Kamala Harris in the upcoming elections.
What Happened: The shift is attributed to a lack of enthusiasm for the Biden administration and the Democratic Party in general. In contrast, Republicans have significantly increased their voter registration advantage in Arizona, another key battleground state, reported The Hill.
Analysts attribute the drop in Democratic voter registration in certain areas of Pennsylvania to growing dissatisfaction with the current administration in Washington. However, Democratic strategists in both Pennsylvania and North Carolina remain confident that a significant portion of the new voters identifying as independent will ultimately favor Harris over Trump.
See Also: NBA Legend Shaq Admitted That He ‘Never Voted’ In Presidential Election Until 2020 As He Urged Others To Register: ‘One Thing I Never Like To Do Is Be A Hypocrite’
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Why It Matters: The fall in Democratic voter registration comes amidst a decline in Vice President Harris’ popularity among Hispanic voters. This demographic has traditionally been crucial in swing states.
Furthermore, recent polls conducted by the Wall Street Journal and Emerson College suggest a close race between Harris and former President Trump in key swing states. While Harris posted a lead in most 2024 election polls of national voters, swing state polls have been much closer, with Trump having the edge in some states.
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This story was generated using Benzinga Neuro and edited by Shivdeep Dhaliwal
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Karen Budd-Falen, a top official at the Department of Interior, has financial ties to the controversial Thacker Pass lithium mine in northern Nevada — a project that the Trump administration worked to fast-track during its first term. In recent months, the administration took an equity stake in the mine and the mine’s parent company.
After an unexplained delay, Public Domain and High Country News obtained Budd-Falen’s financial disclosure earlier this month, which details her family’s extensive land holdings. Among them is Home Ranch LLC, a Nevada ranching operation valued at over $1 million. Nevada’s business search database shows a Home Ranch LLC that listed Frank Falen as the manager in February 2022. Frank Falen is also the name of Karen Budd Falen’s husband.
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Karen Budd-Falen, senior partner at Budd-Falen Law Offices LLC, speaks at the 2024 Western Ag and Environmental Law Conference. Budd-Falen is a top official at the Interior Department. Credit: uacescomm / CC via Flickr
In November 2018, not long after Karen Budd-Falen joined the first Trump administration as a top legal official at the Interior Department, Home Ranch LLC agreed to sell water rights to Lithium Nevada Corporation, the company developing the Thacker Pass mine, for an undisclosed amount of money, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing. Frank Falen is listed on the document.
A Home Ranch also appears in planning documents that Lithium Nevada submitted to federal regulators during Trump’s first term. A monitoring plan for Thacker Pass, dated July 2021, notes that the company intended to use existing stock water wells owned by Home Ranch LLC to “monitor potential drawdown impacts” from its mining operations.
The water purchase agreement and other records raise questions about potential conflicts of interest. Budd-Falen was appointed in March as associate deputy secretary to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum — a position that does not require Senate confirmation. She also served as a high-ranking legal official at the Interior Department during President Trump’s first term.
It was during that earlier government stint that her official calendar lists a November 6, 2019 meeting in which Budd-Falen was scheduled to have “lunch with Lithium Nevada.”
In 2019, Lithium Nevada, a subsidiary of the Canadian mining firm Lithium Americas, was seeking speedy approval for its Thacker Pass mine in northern Nevada. In the waning days of the first Trump administration it received just that. In January 2021, the Bureau of Land Management approved the mine project, which includes some 5,700 acres of public land.
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The $2.2 billion, open-pit mine project has drawn fierce opposition from area tribes and environmentalists, who argue it threatens water resources, endangered species and sacred cultural sites. Thacker Pass, known as Peehee Mu’huh to the Paiute Shoshone people, was the site of an 1865 massacre of at least 31 Paiute people.
Budd-Falen was being considered to lead the BLM during Trump’s first term, but turned down the director job when she learned that she and her husband would have to sell their interests in their family ranches to avoid conflicts of interest, she told The Fence Post in 2018.
Since returning to power, Trump and his team have again worked to move the project forward, as part of a broader push to boost critical mineral mining in the U.S. In September, the Trump administration struck a deal with Lithium Americas to take a 5% equity stake in both the Thacker Pass mine and the company, in exchange for the release of loan money from the Department of Energy.
Budd-Falen has largely worked behind the scenes at the Interior Department. Little is known about what issues she has focused on since returning to the sprawling agency. Notably, Interior officials have yet to release her ethics agreement, which would detail any companies or projects that are off limits.
“Did she have any oversight of the environmental review process regarding Thacker Pass? It is a big question,” said Kyle Roerink, executive director of the Great Basin Water Network, a water conservation group in Nevada. “If she didn’t recuse herself, it would fly in the face of the impartial decisionmaking that Americans expect from government officials.”
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SPARKS, Nev. (BRAIN) — Bicycle Technologies International relocated its warehouse and service operations to a new distribution center with a footprint 50% larger than its previous location about a half mile away.
The facility increases BTI’s inventory capacity, and accelerates order fulfillment for its dealer network. It also expands BTI’s suspension service workspace. All the daily cutoff times will remain unchanged for shops, and the facility is fully operational and shipping packages.
“Our new Sparks distribution center represents a major investment in the future of our company and in the success of our retailer partners,” said Preston Martin, BTI co-founder. “The expanded footprint is timely given that BTI will be introducing more top brands in 2026.”
The company is headquartered in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and continues to ship from there as well.
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BTI said more stock at the new facility means fewer split shipments from multiple locations, reducing the average carbon footprint per order.
Supplementing the building’s skylights and office windows, BTI upgraded all lighting to LEDs with occupancy sensors that save energy by turning off lights in vacant areas. The Sparks’ staff can utilize BTI’s Green Machine benefit that pays employees cash to ride, walk, or take public transit to work.
BTI’s new address is 740 E Glendale Ave., Sparks, Nevada, 89431.
