Balance of power: Helene could shift political winds toward Trump, North Carolina lawmakers say
With early voting kicking off in North Carolina just weeks after Hurricane Helene hit, lawmakers there are optimistic that the storm will have little impact on Americans’ access to the ballot box.
Not only that – a pair of Tar Heel Republican officials told Fox News Digital they believe former President Donald Trump will ultimately win the state.
"I think we're actually going to see a shocking turnout here," Rep. Jake Johnson, a member of the state assembly, said on Thursday. "People are really going above and beyond to make sure during this time – especially if they're frustrated about the way the federal government has handled things."
Rep. Chuck Edwards, R-N.C., whose congressional district was hit hard by Helene, said, "Although we're very busy right now recovering from the storm, we remember what all our lives were like the day before Hurricane Helene hit western North Carolina."
"Families were struggling. Gas prices were climbing. We saw an open border that seemed to go unnoticed or ignored by the Harris and Biden administration. We saw a record amount of fentanyl coming into our country," Edwards said.
Helene ravaged the Southeastern U.S. roughly three weeks ago, killing dozens of people across multiple states.
Northwestern North Carolina was hit particularly hard by the storm and the mudslides it caused, with whole communities believed to have been washed away.
Concerns about voter access after the storm were compounded by North Carolina’s status as a swing state. Trump won there by less than 2% in 2020, and both his and Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaigns are pouring enormous political resources into the state this year.
In a rare show of bipartisanship, however, the Republican-led state legislature worked with Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper to pass a sweeping elections package to make it easier for people in affected counties to reach a ballot box ahead of Nov. 5.
HURRICANE HELENE: NORTH CAROLINA RESIDENTS FIGHT FOR THEIR SURVIVAL AS BASIC GOODS BECOME SCARCE
Edwards, who just last week told Fox News Digital that he was concerned about residents not being able to vote, said he now believes "we’re going to see record turnout at the polls."
The congressman went to an early voting facility himself earlier on Thursday. He spoke with voters he said were "enthused" and "optimistic."
"I was really excited to see the turnout. We had two lanes of traffic down, two different highways with folks coming in to vote," Edwards said. "There was a lot of energy."
He suggested that the enthusiasm would bode well for Trump, after speaking with voters unhappy with the current state of the country beyond the storm.
Meanwhile, Johnson said it was the storm recovery itself that would push more people to vote for Trump.
He said the "lack of response" some rural areas of North Carolina saw immediately after the storm could spur people in those areas to vote Republican.
"If you talk to the average person out there, you know, I think they would agree a lot of this was kind of botched from the top-down as far as the federal response," Johnson said. "I think we're actually going to be shocked at the level of turnout, how good it'll be in western North Carolina."
He and Edwards both also credited the state government’s elections legislation for making it easier for those motivated voters to turn out.
Notably, the White House’s response to the storm has been praised by other Republican officials, like the governors of Virginia, South Carolina and Tennessee.
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., a conservative, also had rare praise for President Biden’s handling of the situation.
North Carolina residents shattered the state's first-day early voting record on Thursday, fueling optimism among officials that the storm will ultimately have little impact on likely voters.
The State Board of Elections said that 353,166 people voted in-person, breaking the same record set in 2020 by roughly 4,500 votes, according to the Charlotte News & Observer.
A recent Quinnipiac University poll shows Harris with a slight two-point lead over Trump in North Carolina. The former president led Harris by the same margin last month.