The rugged North Carolina survivors of Hurricane Helene who lived through hell and high water are turning out in droves to vote.
At least 95 fatalities from the Category 4 storm were reported in the Tar Heel State, with the mountainous west receiving the worst of the devastation.
Mitchell County was one of the hardest-hit areas. But during the first two days of early voting, a record 1,380 votes were cast out of the county’s 11,162 registered voters.
“We’ve never had this many voters in the first two days since I’ve been here,” Roycene Jones, director of the Mitchell County Board of Elections, told The Epoch Times.
“We are mountain people, and we are resilient. We will build back, and we will be stronger.”
North Carolina is considered a must-win for both former President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, and Democrat nominee Vice President Kamala Harris.
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David Frye, 49, who has a side business selling Trump flags, estimated that about 90 percent of Mitchell County votes Republican.
Frye said people who grew up in the hollers were raised on faith and hard work. They believe in self-reliance, with many growing their own crops.
“We live on faith and the promise of tomorrow,” he said.
In neighboring Yancey County, heavy turnout was reported at the early voting site at the county’s Board of Elections building.
Misty Silvers, deputy director of the Yancey County Board of Elections, said their Burnsville location also broke a record on the first day of early voting, with 745 votes cast.
Silvers said a total of 1,600 votes had been cast as of Oct. 21.
“I feel like they really want their voices heard. We were determined to do it,” she said as a way of explaining the turnout.
Democrat Beverly Hill, 76, said her party in Yancey County has been urging its voters to turn out early, as have the Republicans.
More Democrats showed up to vote on the second day of early voting than on the first day, she said.
On social media, the Yancey County Democratic Party called for volunteers to help get out the vote in a highly consequential election.
“Understanding that our current focus is on survival, mourning those we lost, and grappling with a new reality, we also need to step out and help one another vote,” the party wrote in a Facebook post. “Our country and our own future here in Yancey County is on the ballot.”
The RealClearPolitics average of opinion polls has Trump leading North Carolina by 1 percentage point.
A strong Republican turnout in western North Carolina will be necessary for Trump to retake the White House.
—Samantha Flom and Darlene McCormick Sanchez
WHY MANY YOUNG MEN ARE BACKING TRUMP
With just days to go before Election Day, there are signs a crucial voting bloc—young men—could break for former President Donald Trump.
That could spell trouble for Vice President Kamala Harris in what is shaping up to be a tight race.
Past Republican presidential nominees haven’t spent much time courting the youth. Voters aged 30 and older have historically been far more favorable to the GOP than their younger, more liberal counterparts.
But young voters are not a monolith.
Although young women tend to trend Democrat in their voting patterns, young men have historically been split about 50–50.
And while President Joe Biden vastly outperformed Trump in the youth vote in 2020, the Republican nominee may be on track to significantly improve his support with the demographic this election.
“What you can see over the three cycles [from 2016 to 2024] is a general rightward shift in younger voters,” Mark Mitchell, chief of polling firm Rasmussen, told The Epoch Times.
About two dozen young men who spoke to The Epoch Times cited economics as their biggest issue in the election. Housing, taxes, and inflation were their top concerns.
Trump has consistently touted his economic record as president as a selling point with voters.
Several young men said they were drawn to Trump’s masculine persona. Some said they’d been left behind by Democrats and the party’s heavy focus on reproductive issues, and others felt villainized by left-wing ideology.
Rasmussen’s current polling has Trump leading Harris 47 to 46 percent among 18- to 39-year-old men. Women in the same age bracket prefer Harris 48 to 44 percent.
Party strategists and voters have noticed the trend, too. Republicans have sought to capitalize on it while Democrats have sought to reverse it.
Charles Bullock, a political science professor at the University of Georgia, said dwindling support among young men is a legitimate concern for Democrats this year.
“It is a big problem for them, potentially,” he said. “They’ve counted on getting the very young voters. They don’t? Problem.”
Republicans have sought to take advantage of the emerging trend while Democrats have tried to staunch the bleeding.
Trump has been making the rounds on podcasts popular with men, from stints on Theo Von’s “This Past Weekend” and Andrew Schulz’s “Flagrant” to his appearance on “The Joe Rogan Experience” last week.
Those in Harris’s camp have tried attracting male attention with video game streaming sessions and male-oriented ads.
“I eat carburetors for breakfast,” a man in a cowboy hat brags from his truck bed in an ad put out by the pro-Harris Vote Save America PAC.
He and his cowboy friend then declare that they are “man enough” to vote for Harris.
The ad was ridiculed by many online.
—Samantha Flom, Joseph Lord, Stacy Robinson, Arjun Singh
BOOKMARKS
Virginia officials may continue removing suspected noncitizens from the state’s voter rolls, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Wednesday. The Court’s emergency order follows a challenge of officials’ recent removal of 1,600 suspected foreign nationals from Virginia’s voter rolls.
There is “zero chance” of Ivanka Trump appearing alongside her father on the 2024 campaign trail, her husband Jared Kushner said on Tuesday. But the former president’s elder daughter is still “rooting for him” to win another presidential term, Kushner assured.
The “little secret” Trump shares with House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) is about voter mobilization and is “nothing scandalous,” the congressman said Monday. Trump teased the “secret” initiative on Sunday at his Madison Square Garden rally in New York.
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Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mon.) has become the underdog in his bid for a fourth term in the deep red Treasure State. With just days to go before Election Day, Republican challenger Tim Sheehy appears poised to run away with the seat and bring Republicans that much closer to control of Congress’s upper chamber.
