5 ways Hurricane Sandy could impact the presidential campaign

theGRIO REPORT - What impact could Sandy have on American politics?...

Oct 29, 2012

Of course, Florida doesn’t have a hurricane to deal with (at least not this time). But the push for Democratic early voting is a national affair. And in crucial swing states like Ohio and Iowa, (the latter of which also has shortened early voting hours in the final weekend of the race) polls and returns show the Obama campaign opening up a wide leads among early voters. In Ohio, the percentage of people who cast ballots before Election Day is expected to grow from 30 percent in 2008 to 35 percent this year. And early voting totals have been strong in North Carolina, which Obama won by a hair in 2008, and where an estimated 30 percent of African-Americans 18 years of age and older had already voted by the time Sandra hit. Lots of great early voting information here, though the Florida numbers are a day out of date.) With some states shutting down early voting at least temporarily, the votes the campaigns have managed to bank pre-Sandy could be very important in the home stretch.

Republicans may one day regret the way they inadvertently increased the urgency of black voters nationwide to vote early, whether to ensure that their voter registrations are valid or can be fixed before Election Day, to avoid long lines or having to find the right precinct — which early voting doesn’t require, or as a backlash against voter ID laws, billboards that appear to be aimed at intimidating minority voters with the specter of alleged voter fraud, and a personal, often racially incendiary tone toward President Obama that many African-Americans have taken personal offense to. In many ways, it has been the GOP that has mobilized black and Latino voters, with their tone. If the storm curtails early voting during the second and final week of the campaign, that amped up minority voting in week one will matter — it could matter a lot. (UPDATE/note: some crucial states that were impacted by Sandy don’t have early voting — notably Virginia, which has only absentee voting with a valid excuse. For a complete list of state-by-state early voting rules, click here.)

5. Who votes now?

It’s awful to contemplate, but the physical and infrastructure damage that Hurricane Sandy could potentially produce may impact both who, and how many, people are able to get to the polls once the winds and rain subside. That could be an advantage for Republicans, whose voters are older and more likely to vote absentee, and also more likely to live in suburbs, where infrastructure and response times our better; while Democrats, including large swaths of minority voters, tend to live in urban areas, many of which have less robust infrastructure and emergency response capabilities to begin with. On the other hand, it could be that the GOP’s older voters are less able or likely to get to the polls on Election Day.

Conversely, with the storm impacting states on the east coast, it could potentially dampen President Obama’s totals in the popular vote, since he’s widely expected to win states like New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Vermont. Other states in Sandy’s path: North Carolina, New Hampshire and Virginia, are true swing states, and it remains to be seen if voting is impacted there, or which campaign it hurts more.

Whatever happens with the storm, one thing is clear: the most important thing is that Americans stay safe. The election will, as President Obama said today, take care of itself.

Follow Joy Reid on Twitter at @thereidreport