A Bad Wind – The American Perspective

When it comes to the presidential election, you can count on surprises in October. This election is no exception – the Middle East is on the brink of a major war, Elon Musk is doing everything he can to elect Trump – but the fact that two hurricanes are disrupting the election was never on anyone's radar.

Damage from Hurricanes Helene and Milton will make voting more difficult, particularly in North Carolina and, to a lesser extent, Georgia and Florida. People who have been displaced from their homes or lost loved ones have more pressing things on their minds than voting. Those who have already requested mail-in ballots are often not at their usual addresses. With many roads impassable, mail delivery has been suspended in several areas and some post offices remain closed.

In the 25 western North Carolina counties designated as disaster areas following the devastation caused by Helene, voters overwhelmingly supported Trump in 2020, helping him gain a lead of just 1.3 points in the state. On the other hand, deep blue Asheville is the largest and hardest-hit city in the region.

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One would think that North Carolina Republicans would appreciate making it easier for their voters in the western part of the state to cast their ballots, which would help their cause. But Republican lawmakers are sticking with their plan to lower voter turnout across the board because it's more important to them to lower turnout in Democratic strongholds.

While the nonpartisan State Board of Elections passed a resolution to allow voters in 13 hard-hit counties to cast mail-in ballots until 7:30 p.m. on Election Day and extend voting opportunities until the day before the election, there was no law extending it the deadline for registering to vote, which ends today, October 11th. On Wednesday, a Democratic state representative, Caleb Rudow of Buncombe County (Asheville), filed a bill to extend the registration deadline for hurricane victims until Oct. 16. Every Republican voted against it.

Further complicating matters is the right-wing campaign to denigrate FEMA. There are strange fabrications all over social media, repeated by Trump. FEMA ran out of money because its budget was overspending on immigrants. FEMA discriminated against Republican areas.

In fact, FEMA did everything it could to provide assistance, and Biden was in regular contact with all the region's governors to ask what they needed. Even Republican governors were forced to challenge these stories, highlighting the disarray in the Republican ranks and painting a good picture of Biden-Harris. Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp told reporters: “(Biden) just said, 'Hey, what do you need?'” And I told him, you know, we have what we need. We will work through the federal process.”

However, some polls have shown that FEMA is not very trusted. A recent YouGov poll found that 55 percent of respondents approved of their governor's response to the hurricane disaster, but only 43 percent approved of FEMA's.

Biden has denounced Trump's lies, and Democrats at all levels must continue to shame Republicans who want to make it harder to vote after a disaster. Essentially, hurricanes of increasing severity give Democrats the obvious argument that Republicans are the party of climate deniers. But this only works to a certain extent, when the immediate problem is an urgent human catastrophe.

A literal calculation for each county might suggest that a bad vote in North Carolina will hurt Republicans slightly more than Democrats. But in most cases, disasters are not good for incumbents because they indicate that things are getting out of control. No matter how well FEMA responds, it is not enough.

If we can get through the next three weeks without any more natural or man-made disasters, it will be better for Kamala Harris — and perhaps we can avoid the ultimate catastrophe of a Trump victory.