After all, the East Coast has two major swing states (North Carolina and Florida). If Election Day is still plagued by power outages or such after a big storm, could that give that state to whichever candidate had better early voting efforts? (I know NC has it; I don’t think Florida does, but I’m not 100% sure.) Which candidate would it favor should such a thing happen, barring early voting?
Then, of course, there’s the official response. I’m 100% certain that the President and his staff is already putting layers upon layers of plans in place as we speak, but spin knows no truth. What could happen?
The hurricane is supposed to hitaround Halloween (centered around NYC), so I think it’s unlikely that it will have a big affect unless it causes massive damage.
I don’t think it’s expected to landfall in the south. It could have an effect on PA or VA in voter turnout. New England states aren’t toss ups at all. State and local elections might be affected.
This storm is going to hit a week before election day. The only concern is for long-term power outages. I suspect elections officials are already making contingency plans for this.
Interesting effect if it hits NYC. The state is split along geographic lines. NYC and its surrounding areas are strongly Democratic. But upstate New York leans Republican. So a landfall near NYC will push the state in the Republican direction overall.
That said, any event short of a zombie uprising isn’t going to swing New York to Romney.
It does raise the interesting question: what if a hurricane DID hit on election day? Or, equivalently, suppose that a major Californai city were hit by an earthquake on election day? Or a terrorist attack in New York? Any catastrophe hitting a major population area could affect the outcome of an election, especially since there’s often such a huge divide between urban and rural votes.
Would there be some accomodation possible? There would still be some time for the “adjustment” before the electoral college votes, but is that legal or possible?
A major storm hit like Katrina means that Obama will be very visible and looking presidential (one would think). Presidential approval goes up when big things happen to our country.
I think this is a real “October Surprise”.
Mitt will have a challenge because he won’t have time to criticize the president’s handling of it without looking like a schmuck so perhaps he will try to get first mover and suspend his campaign in those states, or donate ad money to emergency relief…I dunno, something like that.
I’m actually pretty worried about how this may impact the election. It’s slated to hit a lot of states that are leaning Obama’s way. For those who have a hard time getting to to polling places as it is, there’s a possibility of them not bothering to go to the polls if there’s heavy damage to their home or something.
Also, if somehow this swings towards Ohio and knocks out power or utilities, I wouldn’t put it past Kasich to send help to Republican areas first. Then again, it could have the opposite affect, with Obama looking like a great president and swing votes his way. Either way, it’s kind of disheartening.
That’s the main concern: that it could depress voter numbers for constituencies that skew Democratic.
But what are the likelihood of major swing states being affected, and how much? I was incorrect about Florida being one, and a lot of the talk is in regards to New York, which is pretty safely in Obama’s column.
Surely they have some contingencies put in place?! Elections used to take longer to tabulate when the system was first set up. I’m betting there are some rules in place that can be used if the worst happens. I’m wondering if both sides aren’t already looking at extending the election somehow, if there is a long power outage. (They are predicting that the power outages caused by the incoming “Frankenstorm” could last until election day.)
You guys talking about Ohio are way too paranoid. The easternmost edge of the state is 600-700 miles from the coast and on the other side of the Allegheny Mountains. There might be a couple of inches of rain in Cleveland a week before election Day. Everything will be fine.
The only area of even potential concern is Philadelphia, which seems to be in the crosshairs of the storm. Philadelphia is reliably Democratic, while the Western parts of the state are more Appalachian and Republican. Still they’ll have a week to fix things up.
Good point brought up elsewhere: rural areas, which tend to skew conservative, could be pretty heavily hit themselves, being rural and all with the wide open spaces and not quite as maintained infrastructure, and thus suppress votes THERE. So it’s really not certain which side, if either, would be hurt more by this.
Yes, “affect” as in bring rain, but we’re talking about affecting the election six days later. Ohio is not going to have 70 mph winds and torrential downpours.
Right now, the predicted Ohio effect is about 2 inches of rain in the course of two days and winds that aren’t likely to exceed 45MPH gusts. Current weather predictions are for 27mph winds on Tues.
The only way it could be a major problems (beside saturation/mud slides) is if it does get cold enough to snow. Then 2 inches of rain would amount to nearly 20 inches of snow. BUT, the weather.com is predicting 40+ degree day temps and only one night even close to freezing. So I don’t see snow happening unless there is a major shift in the weather pattern.
Remember, even if power is knocked out, they can pull in generators to run the equipment and it would make sense that some of these polling stations are also emergency aid stations for the communities.
I would think that if a city like Philadelphia were hit so hard as to be without power a week later, that would INCREASE voter turn out because there won’t be much else to do.
