How Hurricanes Helene and Milton could affect the 2024 election

Last week, Hurricane Milton hit Florida, killing at least 16 people and leaving millions without power. It was the second hurricane in two weeks to batter the Southeast U.S.: In late September, Hurricane Helene made landfall in northern Florida and caused massive flooding in other states such as North Carolina and Georgia, killing more than 230 people and causing as much as $47 billion in property damage.

The human cost of these storms is what matters first and foremost, but it's also worth noting that these states will be holding a major election in less than a month — and at least two of them are highly competitive between Democrats and Republicans. So how might Milton and Helene affect the 2024 election in these places — if at all?

It turns out there's a lot of research on this. Because the Atlantic hurricane season peaks in September and October, hurricanes are, unfortunately, a common occurrence just before elections. That means there are plenty of past examples of tropical cyclones hitting amid the backdrop of a campaign. And according to political scientists who have researched how those storms affected the election, voters react to them just as you'd expect: When the government does a good job with the disaster response, it helps the incumbent party, and when the government does a bad job, it hurts them.

For example, one study found that voters reward the president's party when the federal government comes through with disaster relief. Meanwhile, another study — about tornadoes, not hurricanes — found that voters punish the president's party when tornadoes cause a lot of damage but the government does not issue a disaster declaration.

So the question becomes, how do Americans think President Joe Biden's administration is responding to this year's storms? While it's too early to know for sure, especially about Milton, polls so far indicate that Americans are split along party lines. For instance, according to an Oct. 8-11 poll from YouGov/CBS News, 51 percent of registered voters approved of the way the Biden administration was handling the hurricanes, while 49 percent disapproved. And 49 percent thought the response of federal agencies like the Federal Emergency Management Agency to Helene was too slow — while 47 percent thought it was "about right."

Former President Donald Trump has tried to vilify the Biden administration by spreading false claims that FEMA has been spending disaster relief funds on undocumented immigrants rather than on hurricane victims. The YouGov/CBS News poll also shows that a strong minority (46 percent) of registered voters think these claims are "certainly" or "probably" true — but a majority (54 percent) think they are "certainly" or "probably" false.

An older poll, conducted Oct. 6-7 by YouGov/The Economist, found that Americans' opinion on the response to Helene depended on how it was framed. In the poll, Americans disapproved of how Biden has handled the response to Helene, 44 percent to 38 percent. But they approved of how FEMA — which, of course, is part of the Biden administration — has handled the response, 43 percent to 33 percent.

Finally, perhaps the worst poll for Democrats was a Oct. 2-3 survey from Data for Progress. It found that only 30 percent of likely voters thought the federal government was providing the right amount of support to Americans for disaster relief. Fifty-two percent thought the government was not providing enough.

Of course, the most acute political impacts of these storms may be felt in the affected states themselves. But it is especially hard to know where public opinion stands in those states precisely because of how hard they were hit. With many people still displaced or without power, it's basically impossible to conduct a survey of Florida right now, and no one has polled the presidential election in the state since before Milton hit. And even in North Carolina and Georgia, it's unclear how accurate polls are right now given that parts of those states are still recovering from Helene. For what it's worth, though, the post-Helene polls in those states have been virtually unchanged from before the storm: Trump still leads by about 1 percentage point in both North Carolina and Georgia.

However, the storms could still affect the election in ways other than by changing people's votes — for example, by affecting turnout. It's easy to imagine how these disasters could make it harder to vote: Damaged buildings that previously served as polling places may not be able to serve that purpose this year; road closures may make it more difficult to get to polling places that are open; or people may just be so busy rebuilding their lives that casting a ballot isn't high on their priority list. As a result, past natural disasters have led to lower turnout: For example, the storm formerly known as Hurricane Sandy (by then, it was technically a post-tropical cyclone) hit the Northeastern U.S. eight days before Election Day 2012, and one study found that affected areas saw a 2.8 percent drop in voter turnout between 2008 and 2012; unaffected areas saw a decline of less than 1 percent.

Of course, election officials are doing everything they can to guarantee voting access to people in the wake of the storm. For example, in North Carolina, voters affected by Helene will be allowed to drop off their absentee ballots on Election Day at polling places in their county or even at another county's election board. Local election boards in affected areas will also be allowed to change voting hours, combine precincts and move polling places.

However, it's not guaranteed that these changes will help. After Hurricane Michael hit Florida four weeks before the 2018 election, another study found that the consolidation of polling places in the wake of the storm actually decreased turnout — perhaps because voters were unaware of the changes and the location of their new polling place. Similarly, the share of voters in affected counties who voted by mail actually decreased, despite Florida making it easier to vote by mail in light of the storm.

Still, even if turnout drops in places that were hit hard by these storms, it's unlikely to affect who wins those states (except in the case of an extremely close election). That may seem surprising at first when you look at the partisanship of the counties that have been declared federal disaster areas in Florida, Georgia and North Carolina: They voted for Trump in 2020, whereas the parts of those states unaffected by the storms all voted for Biden.

But the differences aren't stark, at least in Florida and Georgia. The affected counties voted for Trump by only 5 points in Georgia and 7 points in Florida, so the storms will theoretically hinder Trump and Biden voters there in almost equal measure.

By contrast, in North Carolina, the 25 counties hit by Helene voted for Trump 62 percent to 37 percent. However, they also account for just 17 percent of the votes cast in North Carolina in 2020. So while any storm-related turnout drops here would disproportionately hurt Trump, it wouldn't cost him all that many votes in absolute terms.

This won't happen, but as a thought experiment, let's assume that everyone in North Carolina votes the exact same way in 2024 that they did in 2020, but turnout drops by 5 percent in Helene-hit counties. That would cost Democrats 17,482 votes and Trump 29,181 votes — shrinking Trump's margin by 11,699. That could matter in an extremely close election, which isn't impossible. But in 2020, North Carolina was already pretty close (Trump won it by 1.3 points), but Trump's margin was almost seven times that: 74,483 votes. So North Carolina would have to be within a fraction of a percentage point in order for anyone to make a good case that Helene affected the election (even if turnout does fall in the affected areas, which is not a given).

Of course, it's a problem if even one person is disenfranchised because of these storms, and hopefully all eligible voters who want to cast a ballot are able to. But if Trump loses North Carolina (or Georgia or Florida), it likely won't be because of these natural disasters.