This coverage is also made possible through a partnership between BPR and Grist, a nonprofit environmental media organization.
Lunch hour is busy at the Haywood Public Library, where people from Canton and surrounding areas have come to cast their early-voting ballots. Maggie Panther, a Democrat and Canton resident, had just cast her ballot. She told BPR that she still has vivid memories of when politicians would pull up for photo ops in Helene’s aftermath. But, she said, they had few long-term solutions to offer. So, she has climate change on her mind.
“I hate to sound totally partisan, but I know that there's one party that's trying to do something about climate change, and there's one party that is denying it,” Panther said.. “And so, I vote accordingly.”
It’s been two years since Hurricane Helene, but the storm is still casting a shadow over the midterm elections. More natural disasters are likely to happen because of the changing climate, experts say, yet that issue isn’t always part of the political debate, even though it’s a topic that lurks in a lot of people’s minds.
Regardless of party, voters are noticing that the weather isn’t as predictable as it once was. Western North Carolina has seen a lot of natural disasters in the past few years, from Hurricane Fred in 2021 to persistent droughts and wildfires and then Hurricane Helene. Repeated flooding disturbs some straight-ticket GOP voters like Sandra Moody.
“Well, we're not weather people,” Moody said with a hoarse laugh. “But these floods that keep coming. They're supposed to be 500 year floods. You're like, what is going on?”
Other voters at the Canton polls, though, were just as, or more, concerned about dollars-and-cents issues like the price of gas, food, and groceries. These are concrete problems that are much easier to campaign on than large-scale climate issues, experts say. When they do talk about Helene, many candidates have been focusing on how their opponents fell short in the recovery, and not on the link between climate change and the disaster.
Roy Cooper and Michael Whatley are both running for North Carolina’s open Senate seat. Cooper, who was governor during the storm, has a double-digit lead over Whatley, Trump’s so-called recovery czar at the time. Despite both of their associations with Helene, they’ve been a little quiet about the topic. That's to be expected, said political analyst Chris Cooper at Western Carolina University.
“One reason why Hurricane Helene hasn't come up quite as much during this election is because both candidates have some experience that might allow folks to blame them for what almost everyone agrees was a poor response,” Cooper said.
According to economist Penny Liao, who works for the non-partisan think tank Resources for the Future, it’s not surprising candidates don’t want to talk too much about Helene. Voters often blame whoever was in office for a troubled disaster recovery.
“The disaster itself is usually not very good news for the incumbent, but if there is large aid or a timely response, generally the incumbent can potentially benefit from it,” said Liao.
When BPR asked the Senate candidates about the storm, Whatley’s campaign pointed to his volunteer work on the ground after Helene, as well as his role in getting Helene aid to Western North Carolina. Roy Cooper’s campaign touted the former governor’s advocacy for further Helene aid in Washington. Western North Carolina has only received about 16% of the $60 billion in federal aid the state has estimated it will need, according to WNC Recovery. Mailers and ads for both campaigns are more focused on affordability and crime.
Concerns about housing and jobs trace back to the hurricane’s impact on the local economy, Liao said. So, the economy is what politicians focus on.
The NC-11 House race, in which Democrats are pulling tight with Republicans, is in a deeply Helene-impacted district, but neither party was eager to discuss climate change with BPR. Democrat Jamie Ager, who’s running for the NC-11 seat, said it’s better to focus on the economic troubles that Helene has caused. He said he thinks climate change is too big an issue to tackle during a campaign. Ager said it’s not a matter of denial, but strategy, prioritizing Helene relief as a targeted and specific goal.
“Let's get money to help people rebuild their lives first,” Ager said. “We need to get to the root causes long term, and that's a much harder conversation. Not one we’re scared of having, but also not the focus of the conversation.”
Several Republican representatives declined comment, but were quick to tout their Helene recovery efforts.
Regardless of whether anyone wants to talk about climate change, experts say it’s likely to cause more disasters in the future. And those who win an election this year could have to deal with a long disaster recovery someday.
