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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 30, 2024

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How credible is any of this?

At this point, with lawfare, several unclear assassination attempts, it's IMO pretty credible FEMA would deliberately be a bit slow. Politico thinks Helene could affect elections in the states hit.

Politico has an article.

Hurricane Helene hit especially hard in heavily Republican areas of Georgia and North Carolina — a fact that could work to Donald Trump’s disadvantage in the two swing states.

...

Helene hit some predominantly Democratic communities hard too, adding to the uncertainty. In North Carolina, “Buncombe [County] was affected in really bad ways, and that is a liberal bastion,” said Chris Cooper, a political scientist at Western Carolina University. “And Watauga is in really bad shape, also a blue leaning county.”

Overall, Helene could “dramatically change who is in the electorate,” Cooper said.

“In a state like North Carolina where margins matter, then every little tweak to the electorate could be the tweak that makes the difference,” Cooper added. “It’s right on the razor’s edge between red and blue.”

County elections offices in North Carolina — five of which remained closed Thursday — will assess damage to early voting sites and polling stations to determine “which facilities won’t be available,” Karen Brinson Bell, executive director of the State Board of Elections, said this week.

"Every little tweak matters" - there you have it.

Perfect motivation for strong partisans to be inefficient with recovery so that voting is depressed in leaning red counties.