President Biden got an aerial tour Wednesday of flattened buildings and the shells of gutted-out buildings in and around Asheville, North Carolina, the hardest-hit part of the nation from Hurricane Helene.
Traveling by helicopter, Mr. Biden looped over the city in the Blue Ridge Mountains and could see knocked-down trees and homes partially underwater.
Water in Lake Lure had turned a dark brown, and it was hard to distinguish between what should be land and what’s typically water along the terrain.
Mr. Biden is scanning the damage and receiving an operational briefing in Raleigh, North Carolina, a few days after the storm swept through the Southeast. He said it was important to delay his visit until the appropriate time, given the active recovery effort.
The president and Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, are under intense pressure to speed recovery efforts, both for humanitarian and political reasons, given the nearing election.
The president announced Wednesday that he’s deploying 1,000 active-duty soldiers to North Carolina to help the state’s National Guard in the response to Hurricane Helene.
Mr. Biden said the troops will speed the delivery of food, water and medicine to isolated parts of the state, which faces the highest death toll.
Mr. Biden will visit impacted communities in Florida and Georgia on Thursday.
Officials from both parties are linking arms to help North Carolina, but politics is looming in the background. The Tarheel State is a battleground that will award 16 electoral votes and could determine who occupies the White House for the next four years.
Mr. Biden is defending his efforts in the state, which is expected to host a visit from Ms. Harris in the coming days.
“Even before Hurricane Helene hit, I directed my team to do everything possible to prepare to support communities in the storm’s path,” Mr. Biden said.
He is meeting with people on the ground in Raleigh, which is more favorable political terrain for Democrats, while his flyover involved red-hued counties.
“When we talk about the political dynamics of the Helene-impacted counties in North Carolina, we’re describing a more Republican, more rural, older, and more-White voter population that is ultimately about 17% of both the registered voters and actual votes cast [in North Carolina] in the 2020 election,” Michael Bitzer, director of the Center for North Carolina Politics & Public Service at Catawba College, wrote in a recent blog post.
He said the potential political fallout from the storm is difficult to predict.
Previous storms, such as Hurricane Matthew in 2018, caused small drops in election turnout, though not major ones, and the Republican-led General Assembly will also be under pressure to deliver aid and earn kudos from impacted areas.
“Both the administration’s response, along with the General Assembly, and the Republican nature of the counties impacted, may cancel each other out in the end,” he told The Washington Times. “But we need to continue to watch what both the presidential and state-level dynamics are like, along with what the 25 counties may request in aid and support to administer their elections, considering the extensive damage they have.”
• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.
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