Oct.07

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Hurricane Helene Is Still with Us

We and others have written about this before, but it is really important. Politico has another story about the effects of Helene on the election. The people there are suffering, but the election is going to happen anyway, so we can't ignore this. Here are a few photos of the horrendous damage the storm caused.

One of the many effects of Helene was to wipe out the Democrats' robust campaign infrastructure in the western part of North Carolina, centered in Asheville. All of the Buncombe County plans were instantly canceled. All the party volunteers switched to doing relief work. The party chair, Kathie Kline, relocated to a hotel in Charlotte temporarily where she has power and Internet. She is doing her best to collect volunteers to do GOTV work but it is a struggle.

Early in-person voting starts statewide in 2 weeks, but many voting sites are unusable and the county election authorities there are trying to find alternative locations, although a recent state law makes that illegal. Do votes from an authorized but illegal polling site count? Beats us. Ask Chief Justice John Roberts, since other folks may be asking him that in a month or so. Of course, the legislature could change the law before Election Day, but there is no guarantee that it will.

In addition to all the logistical problems, misinformation and conspiracy theories are sprouting like fall mushrooms after a good rain. Donald Trump is claiming that the federal government is withholding aid from Republican counties. Far-right groups are saying the government will bulldoze communities and seize their land. Elon Musk claimed that private flights to bring supplies to North Carolina were blocked by the FAA (Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said that is absolutely false). Alex Jones posted a note saying that the federal government is stealing aid to keep red areas from voting. The list goes on and on. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) tweeted "they can control the weather." Who's "they"? Democrats? The Harris campaign? The people who operate the Jewish space lasers?

Science fiction and non-science fiction aside, we tried to get a better handle on how Helene might affect the election. Remember that Donald Trump won North Carolina by 74,483 votes in 2020 (out of 5,524,804 votes cast). Keep that in mind. Twenty-five counties have been declared disaster areas. This does not mean that every county was affected equally or that no other counties sustained damage, but it is a starting point. We looked up the 2020 vote by county. Trump won 23 of the counties. The first three columns below give the 2020 election results by county and the fourth column gives the net Trump vote for each county:

In the 25 counties, Trump's net edge was 233,986 votes. Now what? Just suppose the damage is so bad that only 25% of the voters in each county vote (column 5), and the Democrats and Republicans are hit equally hard. Then Trump's edge in the 25 counties will be only 58,497, which represents a net loss for him of 175,490 votes.

Alternatively, suppose half the people in the affected counties vote (column 6). Then his edge is 116,993, which is 116,993 fewer votes than in 2020. Or, assume 75% of the people vote (column 7). Then Trump gets 175,490 votes more than Harris, which is 58,497 less than in 2020. If fewer than about two-thirds of the affected people vote and nothing else changes, Trump's loss in these mostly red counties will allow Harris to eke out a win in the state and get the state's electoral votes. If 70% vote and Trump ekes out a statewide win of a few thousand votes, expect to hear that the hurricane was part of God's plan to have Trump win North Carolina. (V)