It’s traditional in American politics to fret about “October surprises,” the unanticipated events that throw off years of plans and calculations. October has barely begun, but Hurricane Helene with its terrible destruction already has people wondering, so I wrote some preliminary thoughts about how to assess it at New York:
The upcoming presidential election is so close that it could easily be swayed by external developments. Perhaps a widening war in the Middle East will turn heads in one direction or the other, or possibly a dockworkers strike will shake the steadily improving economy and help Republicans. But the major event we already know about is Hurricane Helene, which took a horrific toll on a swath of coastal and inland communities stretching from Florida to Virginia. Confirmed deaths from the storm have already reached 175, with more likely as rescue crews sift through the wreckage and reach remote areas. Damage is expected to reach as much as $160 billion, making the storm one of the deadliest and costliest in U.S. history.
While the human tragedy of Helene remains front and center, it’s impossible to forget entirely that the nightmare storm hit late in a very close and highly consequential presidential election, and two battleground states (Georgia and North Carolina) were very much affected. Here’s what we know about the possible political fallout.
A lot of what we know about the impact of a major destructive storm on the willingness and ability of citizens to vote comes from Hurricane Sandy, which hammered parts of Connecticut, New Jersey, and New York in October 2012 during the run-up to a reasonably competitive presidential election. Sandy, to be clear, was much more proximate to Election Day (hitting the United States on October 29, eight days before the election) than Helene. On the other hand, early voting has become more significant since 2012, and mail ballots were going out in North Carolina when Helene roared across the area. The major study on the electoral impact of Sandy concluded that the famous “superstorm” did not have a significant impact on voter turnout in 2012.
There’s some talk in North Carolina of flooded polling places that may not be usable any time soon and fears of extended disruption of mail service. However, in all but a few isolated places, there should be plenty of time for recovery in the month before Election Day. Individuals, of course, may experience dislocations and psychological effects that might interfere with all kinds of civic participation, but it will be hard to anticipate the magnitude of such collateral damage.
The Washington Post took a look at the communities experiencing the most death and destruction from Helene and quickly concluded Trump country was most affected:
“As of writing, the federal government has issued disaster declarations in 66 mostly rural counties across four states: 17 in Florida, 11 in Georgia, 25 in North Carolina, and 13 in South Carolina. The declarations follow Helene’s path, from the section of Florida where the state bends along the Gulf of Mexico, through eastern Georgia and into the western Carolinas …
“Overall, counties in those four states that weren’t declared disaster areas voted for Joe Biden by a slight margin. Counties that were declared disaster areas backed Trump by a nearly 16-point margin. In all four states, counties that were included in the federal government’s disaster declarations were more supportive of Trump than were counties that didn’t receive that designation. In Georgia and North Carolina, non-disaster counties gave more votes to Biden.”
The disparate impact is most notable in North Carolina, a red-hot battleground state and the one where Helene’s impact was most heavily concentrated:
“Trump won North Carolina by a bit over one percentage point in 2020. If no one in the counties currently undergoing a Helene-related disaster had voted, Biden would have won by more than three points. If those counties are unable to vote at the same level as they did four years ago by the time Election Day arrives, that could spell trouble for the former president.”
But again, it’s a long time until Election Day.
People who have lost homes or other possessions to high winds and (especially) flooding and/or who lack power or other essentials for an extended period of time are especially dependent on emergency assistance and may be grateful if it arrives expeditiously. Beyond for those immediately affected, the perceived competence and compassion of government entities dealing with disaster relief and recovery efforts can affect how voters assess those in office, particularly in a high-profile situation like that created by Helene.
An American Enterprise Institute study of Sandy suggested that the Obama administration’s response to the storm was a major factor in the incumbent’s ability to win late deciders in 2012, topped by this finding: “Fully 15 percent of the electorate rated Obama’s hurricane response as the most important factor in their vote.”
At the other end of the spectrum, the George W. Bush administration’s tardy, confused, and seemingly indifferent response to the calamity of Hurricane Katrina in August and September of 2005 had an enduringly negative effect on perceptions of his presidency, even though it occurred nowhere close to a national election, as Reid Wilson explained:
“Voters, already turning skeptical over the mismanaged war in Iraq, blamed Bush for the unfolding disaster in New Orleans. Bush’s approval rating hit 45 percent in Gallup surveys the month after Katrina; they never again reached that high. The number of Americans who said the country was headed off on the wrong track rose north of 60 percent and stayed even higher for the rest of Bush’s presidency.”
While FEMA and HUD are typically the federal agencies most involved in disaster response and recovery, presidential leadership in a disaster always gets attention, too, and the risk of negative publicity or graphic displays of unmet needs won’t go away immediately. Bureaucratic backlogs in distributing funds and approving applications for assistance could cause voter unhappiness long after the initial damage is addressed.
Barring unexpected developments or a major series of screwups in the federal response, Hurricane Helene is likely to mark a big moment in the lives of people in and near the areas of devastation but probably won’t much affect their voting behavior. Obviously the campaigns and their allies will need to adjust their get-out-the-vote operations and show some sensitivity to the suffering of people whose lives were turned upside down. We can only hope the election itself and its aftermath don’t add violence and trauma to the damage done.
While Gallup is finding Bush comfortably ahead of Kerry in Wisconsin, Sen Russ Feingold (D-WI) is ahead by more than 20 over his GOP challenger. I know we’re famous for ticket-splitting, but it’s not very likely that we’d go overwhelmingly for a liberal like Feingold AND go for Bush. Gallup is no longer worthy of reading or reporting.
Dana, you speak of the love that I dare not speak its name – the SWEEP.
I hope it is coming, and I agree with your logic.
I’ve been telling anyone who will listen we are going to win by 5 million votes.
I hope we have enough to take back the House. We have to stop those crazy rightwingers by rooting out their nest.
The intensity on both sides is intense. I doubt that there will be a Democratic majority in either the House or the Senate.
But the intensity on the side of the Democrats is a good thing. The Republicans have had good turnout for years, but not the Democrats. I’m hoping that there will be some surprises on Nov 2nd.
Excerpt from James Mann, Rise of the Vulcans:
“We have decided that we’ll try Rumsfeld working with Gallup. He went to school with George [Gallup] Jr. at Princeton,” Colson told the president in July 1971. Nixon and Colson were eager to try to influence the results of major pollsters, notably Gallup and Harris, perhaps getting them to phrase their questions or to present their results in ways that were helpful to Nixon. “I mean, if the figures aren’t up there, we don’t want them to lie about it,” Nixon explained to Colson at one point. “They can trim them a little one way or another.” [Note 40: Nixon phone call to Colson, July 23, 1971, conversation 6-197, Nixon tape collection, National Archives.] …
RUMSFELD: Say, I want to just report, sir, about my conversation with George Gallup [Jr.].
NIXON: Oh yeah, you went to school with him, didn’t you?
RUMSFELD: I did. And I kind of want to be awful careful about telling people around the building that I’m talking to him. Because all he’s got in his business is his integrity.
Rumsfeld then informed Nixon an upcoming Gallup Poll would show that the president’s popularity had recently gone up. [Note 41: Nixon conversation with Rumsfeld, October 19, 1971, conversation 11-135, Nixon tape collection, National Archives.]
http://www.ufppc.org/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=759&Itemid=2
Okay, call me paranoid, but maybe Gallup is deliberately”gaming its polls to give cover to the Republicans who appear to be doing their dead-level best to steal the election in Florida and in Ohio. If Bush “miraculously” pulls ahead by four or five points on election day, the media will simply point to these convenient Gall-up polls, announce Bush would have won anyways—look at those Gallup polls–tell Democrats that they should just Get Over It.
I’m predicting a Kerry victory—I think just too many Democrats will show up in the polls for the GOP to scare off or intimidate or spin away. And I also predict that Gall-up won’t be short of clients. CNN will continue to buy their services. Or (worst-case scenario) Gall-up will lose a few media contracts, but be more than compensated by all the new right-wing think tank business.
Question: Has any pollster come up with a methology for correlating the intensity of support for a candidate or party with final results?
In 1994 polls showed a fairly close Congressional election, but there was great intensity among Republicans (remember the “revenge of the white men?”) and they won Congress.
In 1986, however, there was greater intensity among Democrats, something not found in polls, and you had some huge upsets, like Wyche Fowler in Georgia.
My own guess on intensity shows it off the charts on the Democratic side, slightly elevated on the Republican. This points toward a huge Democratic swing, absolute control of Congress and a landslide for Kerry.
But I’m not a statistician, and I don’t know how you could measure it with a poll.
Any thoughts?
The Bushites are scared. Bush visited WI again today. Even the Rep that was on NPR admitted that WI appears to be trending towards Kerry Edwards.
Isn’t the best evidence that this is total horse—– the fact that Bush is campaigning frenetically in these states. I would have thought that 9% would mean going somewhere really close.
CNN & USA Today must fire Gallup
If this election proves that the Gallup methodology is flawed and their flaws show a tilt to one side then we should compell CNN & USA Today to fire Gallup. Recently CNN interviewed Gallup and asked him about the poll discrepencies…his answer was that their LV model was better. When asked about the ‘bandwagon effect’ (do polls effect how people view the candidates and do they become a Self-fulfilling Prophecy Frank actually said “would that be a bad thing?..people should factor polls into their decisions”.
Therefore if they turn out to be ‘idiots’ we should immediately do to CNN & USA Today what we did to Sinclair and force them to drop Gallup
Ok, it’s only a week before the elction and my paranoia is running rampant. Could it be that the Gallup poll is providing cover for rampant electronic voting fraud?
Happy Halloween!
Kilroy
Gallup is really walking the plank on this election. But a lot of the blame rests on CNN and USATODAY for spreading the baloney poll results around and paying Gallup a lot of $. An important goal is to try to get CNN and USATODAY to dissociate themselves from Gallup. It’s impossible for this election, but possible for the future.
Actually they will look like geniuses or SHILLS. I don’t think there’s a lot of doubt about which, but we’ll know in a week.
Read The Vulcans. There is chapter about Rumsfeld’s rise during the Nixon Administration. One of his duties during Dick’s re-election was to game the Gallup brothers. While Rummie wouldn’t get the Gallup poll to lie, he would get advance warning of the poll’s findings.
Seems this year, he is getting the Gallup poll to lie.
Their huge pro-GOP sample bias in Florida certainly speaks for itself. However, what about the latest Gallup poll for Ohio, which was released a day after their latest Wisconsin poll:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/politicselections/nation/polls/2004-10-21-ohio-poll.htm
It showed Kerry up 48-47 among LVs, and a startling 50-44 Kerry lead among RVs! Huh? Most Ohio polls are looking pretty good for Kerry, but 50-44? Isn’t that a bit much?