JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Homes and businesses in Florida, Georgia and North Carolina in the path of last month's Hurricane Helen and impending Hurricane Milton aren't the only ones in turmoil.
The same can be said about the electoral maps themselves in two battleground states and three states where polls show the November election could be close.
Georgia and North Carolina each have 16 electors, so if you combine them with more than a third of the 88 contested electors in the seven battleground states this election year, the question is whether voters will be able to exercise their right to vote. Questions remain about this.
In the gap between two major hurricanes making landfall in the state, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis suggested that Blue Ridge Mountain residents' inability to vote may be a gift to the Kamala Harris administration. did. This season.
“If you look at Georgia and North Carolina, I think the path that this took was probably the path that 2-1 Republicans took,” DeSantis said on “The Dana Show” last week.
Unless special measures are taken for these voters, DeSantis expects to see a “significant drop in turnout,” especially in western North Carolina. In North Carolina, flooding, mudslides and other destruction caused by Helen has devastated communities and even removed them from maps.
The Florida governor is right about how close these states are, both historically and this cycle.
Trump lost the Peach State by about 11,000 votes in 2020, according to RealClearPolitics, and recent polls show him holding an average lead of 1.5 points.
Additionally, while the former president won the Tar Heel State by more than 1 point in 2020, polls in North Carolina show that, on average, Trump's lead has narrowed this term, and his lead with Harris has narrowed. It is 0.6 points.
Indeed, the destruction of the Republican stronghold in the North Carolina mountains could be a major swing in the election.
But how does North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat who was a finalist for Harris' running mate, have an incentive to secure universal suffrage for people who might interfere with his political goals? I don't know yet whether I'll give it that way.
But as anyone who uses a weather app knows, Mr. Milton is threatening Florida, with 30 electoral votes at stake and many polls showing the presidential and U.S. Senate races. could threaten an election in the state that may be too close to call.
Some predictions say the Cat 5 monster will race up Interstate 4 like a malicious tourist, leaving behind wreckage from Tampa to Orlando before crawling into the Atlantic Ocean near Daytona Beach .
Of course, this will have many implications beyond election administration. There is nothing more political than the aftermath of a hurricane, given FEMA's funding woes, the blame game that officials face in the chain of storm disasters, the destruction of infrastructure, and ultimately the human suffering. .
Every severe storm brings into stark relief how fragile civilized society really is, as “You Loot, We Shoot” signs regularly appear outside destroyed homes and businesses.
However, the contradiction is as follows. What has already happened in North Carolina, Georgia, and Florida (and their secondary aid headed to the Sunshine State) is a massive tragedy, but the impact on the nation (beyond what is being felt in the insurance markets and at FEMA) is a massive tragedy. budget) could become the election itself.
And Republicans, who have spent years talking about “election security” and sounding the alarm about absentee voting, have already allowed displaced residents to vote using temporary addresses to receive their mail-in ballots. , I found myself open to creative solutions.
That solution is being implemented in many Republican-leaning counties after Hurricane Helen, but Interstate 4 is a historically volatile area, and if Florida shuts it down within four weeks. The move will likely invite intense scrutiny.
Man plans, God laughs. That old saying is well illustrated.
And with what political experts like to call the most important election of our lifetimes already underway, the antiseptic rhetoric of election administration is being tested by the chaos on the ground, and in the fog of the aftermath. They will be forced to make ad hoc changes that may raise questions.
