How will natural disasters impact the U.S. presidential election?

When Kamala Harris arrived in the Georgia city of Augusta this week, she promised an outpouring of federal funds to rebuild what Hurricane Helene has torn down and expressed sympathy for the immense losses people there have experienced.
What Ms. Harris did not mention were the forces of climate change that, scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory calculated, augmented the ferocious precipitation from the hurricane by roughly 50 per cent. One weather station in North Carolina recorded 80 centimetres of rain in three days, more than half of what normally falls over an entire year on a wet city such as Vancouver.
Helene arrived in the final weeks of a presidential campaign in which polls show the margins between Donald Trump and Ms. Harris are razor-thin in both North Carolina and Georgia.
Among the questions in the storm’s destructive wake is whether it will alter the political balance, pushing voters newly exposed to the ravages of unexpected weather to Ms. Harris – or whether she will be punished by those stung by loss and the slow pace of restoring essential services.
Helene’s destructiveness was especially shocking because it struck areas that had felt removed from the intense weather systems more frequently lashing coasts and setting fire to tinder-dry forests. Asheville, N.C., lies 400 kilometres from the Atlantic. It is where the U.S. government situated its own hub for climate data.
Climate change is an issue that clearly divides the two presidential candidates. Mr. Trump has dismissed it as a factor in extreme weather events. Ms. Harris has, by contrast, called it a crisis. “It is clear that the clock is not only ticking, it is banging,” she said last year. “And we must act.”
Those who have advocated for better awareness of climate risks say unusual disasters like this one, described by Asheville’s mayor as “unprecedented, historical devastation,” may help raise public concern over a warming planet.
But experience elsewhere calls into question whether Helene will alter views, particularly as conservatives dismiss the need for any such discussion.
“Does this give Democrats an advantage on climate change? Don’t nobody here think like that,” said Dallas Woodhouse, a prominent conservative political activist in North Carolina who is former executive director of the state’s Republican Party.
With so many people displaced or still awaiting rescue, “the last thing they’re worried about is politics. They’re worried about where the next meal is going to come from.”
Democrats have, so far, been cautious about raising broader climate concerns. In a briefing after he flew over the damage this week, President Joe Biden said, “Nobody can deny the impact of climate crisis any more, at least I hope they don’t. They must be brain dead if they do.” But he stopped short of making any political appeal.
In 2022, Hurricane Ian struck Florida midway through a survey being conducted by Prince University political scientists, who recorded a number of immediate changes. Those in places hit hard by that hurricane, one of the costliest in U.S. history, initially showed greater support for climate action, although any change was short-lived. “A survey six months after Hurricane Ian revealed no persistent effects,” the researchers reported earlier this year.
Another study showed that those who lived within five kilometres of a California wildfire grew more supportive of climate-related ballot measures. Those 15 or more kilometres away, however, showed no change. Those in Republican areas were similarly unmoved.
It is a “partisan story,” said Matto Mildenberger, a political scientist at UC Santa Barbara who is one of the study’s authors.
“When you experience some disaster, in order for that disaster to lead to shifts in your political behaviour, your voting, how much climate policy you want to see – it depends on the stories you’re telling yourself about the disaster.”
The role of climate change in amplifying the power of Helene has received little mention on Fox News, for example.
Mr. Trump, in Georgia on Friday, criticized the “terrible response from the White House,” promising the state’s governor that “if I’m involved, they’re going to get the best treatment.”
Conservatives in North Carolina say the hurricane has brought other political considerations to the fore, too. Most of the state’s 25 heavily affected counties lean Republican. The state will need to find ways to ensure that they can vote, said Mr. Woodhouse. He worries about his party’s supporters struggling to cast ballots.
But he also sees risks for Democrats.
“They run the federal government. And to the degree that people are unsatisfied with the relief and recovery efforts – getting power back on and getting cell services – that’s going to blow back on the Harris-Biden administration.”
Advocates of climate action, too, say they worry about the potential for backlash if they move too quickly to use Helene to speak about broader issues. A climate awareness campaign by a group called Science Moms directs social-media users to a website that is now gathering donations for those affected by Helene. But scroll down and the site also asks: “What made Hurricane Helene so unnatural? Burning fuels.”
John Marshall, who left a senior executive job at a corporate branding agency to focus on climate, has tested out nearly 1,000 different climate-change messages, and found that the most convincing are those that emphasize how global warming is affecting people. He has helped to create Science Moms and other similar groups.
“A message on extreme-weather impact on climate is a very productive message to get people to care more about climate,” he said. And, he added, “it’s equally effective with conservatives as progressives.”
Some in North Carolina are already preparing to make that connection. Richard Joyner, a pastor of a Baptist congregation east of Raleigh, intends to speak about the hurricane in his sermon this Sunday.
Mr. Joyner works with groups aligned with Science Moms. Perhaps, he said, Helene is a divine reminder of the toll of carbon emissions. His message: “When you get in the voting box, make a decision for a safe climate control and a safe world.”