(Newport News, Va.) — Democrat Ralph Northam’s lead over Republican Ed Gillespie has narrowed in the contest to be Virginia’s next governor, according to a tracking poll released Tuesday by the Wason Center for Public Policy at Christopher Newport University.

Northam, now lieutenant governor, is the choice of 48% of the likely voters surveyed, while former Republican National Committee Chair Gillespie is the choice of 44%.

Libertarian Cliff Hyra polled at 3%, with 5% undecided. The survey’s margin of error is +/- 4.2%.

In the Wason Center’s benchmark poll, released September 25, Northam’s lead stood at 6% (47% to 41%). It grew to 7% (49% to 42%) in the first tracking poll, released October 9.

The current survey is the first in the Wason Center’s tracking series in which Northam’s share shrank as Gillespie’s increased. It is also the first in the series in which Northam’s lead is within the survey’s margin of error.

(Miami) — The National Hurricane Center says Irma’s projected path is continuing to shift to the west, just a few crucial miles, that should keep its eye just off Florida’s west coast on a track to hit St. Petersburg, not Miami or even Tampa.

The hurricane’s leading edge was already lashing the Florida Keys with hurricane force winds. If the center of the storm keeps moving over warm Gulf of Mexico water, it may regain more strength before making landfall again.

St. Petersburg, like Tampa, has not taken a head-on blow from a major hurricane in nearly a century. Clearwater would be next, and then the storm would finally go inland northwest of Ocala.

At midnight, the storm had top sustained winds of 120 mph  and is moving northward at about 6 mph.