Record gas prices greet Election Day voters as cost of living drives turnout

Voters heading to the polls Tuesday are paying more at the pump than on any Election Day on record. The national average for regular gasoline hit $4.12 a gallon, and diesel reached $6.28, according to GasBuddy. Both are the highest national averages ever recorded on an Election Day.That is the backdrop as Americans decide who controls Congress. And for many voters, the cost of everyday life, from fuel and groceries to housing, is the issue bringing them out. More than 60 million people had already cast a ballot before polls opened Tuesday.That is more early votes than in any previous midterm, said Michael McDonald, a University of Florida political science professor who runs the lab's early voting tracker."We beat that number which was about 46 million in 2022 by quite a bit," McDonald told Scripps News.But the early numbers only tell part of the story. Around half of all votes in recent elections have been cast on Election Day itself. In the handful of states reporting Election Day tu