North Carolina is reeling from Hurricane Helene. People are still missing, millions are without power, roads are impassable in many towns and the city of Asheville doesn’t have access to clean drinking water. And in 34 days there’s an election that, suddenly, no one knows how to ensure it will be run smoothly.
Both voting logistics and voter preferences are suddenly gnarled with complications in the swing state. It is not clear how many voters have lost their IDs or absentee ballots, or whether all voting precincts will be able to open in time. It’s also impossible to predict whether voters will change their minds about who to vote for — or if those battling the disastrous consequences of the storm will care to turn out at all.
The aftermath of the hurricane has already become viciously political. Some Republicans, including Donald Trump, have claimed without evidence that the Biden-Harris administration and Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper have been “going out of their way to not help people in Republican areas.”
The Biden administration declared a major federal disaster for areas of Florida, North Carolina and South Carolina. People in 25 counties in North Carolina, including some Republican strongholds and the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, can now apply for assistance with FEMA. FEMA is also sending dozens of trailers containing food and water to support care sites for survivors. In the hardest hit areas of North and South Carolina, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is moving in power generators as flood waters recede. Biden is planning to visit the area on Wednesday, and Harris and Trump have both said they would visit the area when their travels don’t interfere with relief efforts.
North Carolina Democrats are not only claiming to put politics on pause, but criticizing Republicans for politicizing the crisis.
"[Donald Trump’s] rhetoric is nonsense, and it’s actually, it’s grotesque,” Kevyn Creech, the Wake County Democratic Party chair, told NOTUS. “We’ve had this huge event, this disaster that is in large part caused by climate change, and it always affects folks who have the least and so to be using this as some sort of talking point is kind of disgusting.”
Even in the back and forth, pollsters tell NOTUS there is no way to know whether the disaster, and how the parties have responded to it, will change who voters support; it’s simply too hard to get reliable surveys out.
Cell service, internet and power are so spotty in the western part of the state that preparations and adaptations for the coming election are still in their earliest stages. One specialist for the state’s board of elections walked four or five miles Monday to an office in the county seat for Asheville in order to begin helping with emergency arrangements.
“We do not stop an election. We figure out how to proceed, and that is why we have come before you today,” Karen Brinson-Bell, the executive director of the state’s board of elections, said at an emergency meeting Monday.
The board held the emergency gathering to allow counties to reschedule mandatory meetings for reviewing absentee ballots, which are required by law to begin Tuesday. The board also hosted a press conference to discuss voter IDs, absentee ballots and other concerns.
Campaigns are struggling with many of the same questions.
“All the impact on elections does need to get figured out from the campaign side. Roads are like impassable, so mail services are shut down, and a good portion of messaging comes from sending out mailers and things,” said Sam Lozier, a spokesperson for the North Carolina House Democratic caucus. “And vote-by-mail and early voting locations may be impacted. It all needs to get figured out.”
Cheryl Carter, the co-executive director of the voting rights organization Democracy North Carolina, says her organization is in the early stages of planning to address concerns around ballots and IDs. But even with those preparations, she fears that the consequences are inevitable.
“I would like to say that it will not impact turnouts, but unfortunately I do think that it will have some level of impact,” she said.
The first priority, however, has been getting relief out to people.
Lozier says Democrats in the state legislature, especially in the most hit areas, have turned their focus to recovery — even in some of the party’s critical races. Lindsey Prather, the Democratic incumbent in North Carolina’s 115th House District in the outskirts of Asheville, is posted up at a command center directing residents to resources they need. Lorenza Wilkins, the Democratic candidate in Nash County, where a tornado injured 15 people on Friday and heavily damaged buildings and cars, is engaged in relief efforts as well.
“This stage of elections is where it gets the most divisive,” Lozier said. “While campaigns still have to exist right now, politics ultimately has to take a back seat.”
Matt Mercer, communications director for the North Carolina GOP, says Republicans’ main focus is supporting the organizations that have taken the initiative on relief efforts, including Samaritan’s Purse, an evangelical Christian disaster-relief organization headquartered in North Carolina.
Mercer said all of the Trump Force 47 offices — Trump’s volunteer get-out-the-vote operations — in the state are collecting nonperishable goods, batteries and other tangible items to bring to affected areas.
But he acknowledges that both parties are running against the clock.
“It definitely requires a balanced understanding that you know, first and foremost, you have friends and family and neighbors that are hurting and need help,” Mercer said. “But you know, the calendar is what it is, too.”
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Calen Razor is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow. Anna Kramer is a reporter at NOTUS.