North Carolina in the news

North Carolina, where I live, is normally a backwater. But two things have put North Carolina in the news recently. The first is the devastation caused by Hurricane Helene in the North Carolina mountains near Asheville. The second is the possibility that Kamala Harris will win in North Carolina on November 5. Trump won North Carolina in 2016 and 2020.

It seems that everyone including the media expected the worst damage from Hurricane Helene to be in Florida and areas farther south. But the storm dumped more than 20 inches of rain in some areas of western North Carolina. In those mountains, the streams and rivers often run through narrow valleys, and that’s where the flooding occurred. I live about a hundred miles east of the heavy rain, and it wasn’t very bad here. But a neighbor, who also is the chief of the local volunteer fire department, is among the crews who were sent into western North Carolina to help with rescue and cleanup. He is spending that time helping to recover the bodies of people who drowned, and he says that the final toll will be much higher than what is being reported at present. The state has told people to consider all roads in western North Carolina closed. Even Interstate 40 was partially washed out. The video of the flooding is horrifying, with such things as an entire hospital partially submerged and people standing on the roof.

Trump, and all the Republicans on the North Carolina ballot, are going to be dragged down by the Republican candidate for governor of North Carolina, Mark Robinson. Robinson is such an idiot and such a psychopath that even some Republicans can see what he is in spite of the usual Republican adoration of idiots and psychopaths. Some polls have Robinson running 14 points behind the Democratic candidate for governor, Mark Stein.

Voters in North Carolina sometimes split on statewide races. For example, though Trump carried North Carolina in 2020, North Carolina elected a Democratic governor in the same election, Roy Cooper. Republicans were so terrified of Robinson dragging down the Republican ticket that they tried to get him to withdraw before they decided to double down and back him. North Carolina’s 16 electoral votes are likely to be critical in the 2024 election for president, maybe even decisive.

My unscientific and unquantifiable reading is that North Carolina is very likely to go for Harris. I think there is more Trump fatigue and more Trump remorse than the polls can capture. Republicans who are tired of Trump, or even sick of Trump, have to keep quiet about it or they will catch MAGA hell. I suspect that quite a few women will lie to their menfolk about how they vote. The right-wing North Carolina legislature usually cooks up some sort of bonkers culture war issue to inflame Republicans during election years, such as the “bathroom bill” of 2016. This year there is nothing like that. This year Republicans, poor things, are not quite sure what they’re supposed to be raging about.

As in 2020, this year I’ll be a poll observer for the North Carolina Democratic Party. Early voting in North Carolina starts October 17. In those states where Republicans are motivated to steal elections, lots of lawyers from out of state come in to help keep an eye on things and to stand in the way of Republican attempts to mess with the election. The state party operates a “boiler room” of lawyers in Raleigh who monitor the voting in each county through a system of volunteers. Online training for the volunteers is required. There’s a hotline, and an app, that the volunteers use for reporting to Raleigh. North Carolina statutes allow for poll observers who are permitted inside the voting area. They can listen to (though not interfere with) the interactions between poll workers and voters. They can watch the machines that tabulate the ballots and take photos of the tabulator screens before the polls open and after the polls close so that the number of ballots cast can be monitored. If poll workers turn a voter away, poll observers can follow the voter out of the voting area and inquire about what happened. If a poll observer thinks that poll workers are not following the law, they can politely intercede with the poll’s chief judge — and call the boiler room. I’ll also be attending the meetings of the county board of elections during the canvassing of the vote required by North Carolina law.

In my county, which Trump won by 78 percent in 2020 and 77 percent in 2016, Republicans have very little motive to try anything sneaky. But all of North Carolina’s 100 counties will be monitored by Democratic volunteers and the boiler room in Raleigh. If the vote is close, there is no limit to the dirty tricks that Republicans will use to try to steal the election. Democrats, at both the state and national levels, are very aware this year that Democrats need to win by such large margins that Republicans would be unable to steal the election, even with help from the Supreme Court, which will be slobbering to step in and hand it to Trump if Republicans can find a reason.