Despite its enormous impact, the climate crisis has so far largely been a hidden issue in the US presidential election. Some hope the damage caused by two major hurricanes in quick succession will sway American voters' priorities ahead of a tough choice between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump on Election Day.
Last month, Hurricane Helen became one of the deadliest storms to ever hit the United States, tearing a path north through key election battleground states Georgia and North Carolina, killing more than 220 people and destroying billions of dollars. caused damage. Two weeks later, Hurricane Milton hit all of Florida.
Scientists found that record heat in the Gulf of Mexico added stronger winds and heavy rain to hurricanes, and that the climate crisis has made both storms even more powerful. The storm, which arrives just weeks before the Nov. 5 election, could be an unfortunate shock for voters.
“This tends to focus people’s minds on the effects of climate change,” Jay Inslee, Democratic Washington state governor and prominent climate change advocate, told the Guardian.
“Climate change is spreading its tentacles everywhere. There is nowhere to hide in America. There are floods in the Midwest, wildfires on the West Coast, and even in Asheville, North Carolina, which considers itself a sanctuary. We’ve seen it happen, and the increasing frequency of these disasters has increased the desire of Americans to fight this beast.”
The hurricane’s most immediate impact on elections may be that people in states like western North Carolina struggle to get to their polling places amid devastated roads, downed power lines and disrupted postal service. do not have. The effectiveness of the disaster response has also been highlighted by misinformation fueled by Trump and his supporters, leading to threats against emergency workers and meteorologists, which may also sway some voters. may be helpful.
Harris’ campaign has capitalized on revelations that Trump withheld disaster aid as president, with a new TV ad airing in North Carolina and Georgia featuring the former president drawing official hurricane forecast maps with a mechanical pencil. It showed the infamous moment of mending.
Donald Trump speaks to reporters after being briefed by officials about Hurricane Dorian. This map is from the forecast for August 29, 2019, and appears to have been changed with a black marker to extend the hurricane’s reach into Alabama. Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Americans overall are increasingly concerned about the threat posed by the climate crisis as costly disasters steadily increase. According to the poll, 6 in 10 people say they are feeling the effects of global warming now, and a further 16% say they will be felt in the future. Another poll found that more than half of all voters are “alarmed” or “concerned” about climate change, even though the issue remains politically polarizing.
But despite Harris’ support for a major bill signed by Joe Biden that pumps billions into clean energy, and the stark contrast presented by Trump’s climate change campaign, the climate crisis remains largely unresolved before and after the hurricanes. Not mentioned. He called it a “huge fraud”, claimed that rising sea levels would lead to more beachfront land, and said the US would do a “training, baby training” once the president returned to the White House.
Paul Bledsoe, a former climate change aide in the Bill Clinton White House, said: “What’s going on here? “It’s frustrating that there isn’t a broader discussion about whether it’s hurting insurance.” .
“The White House assumption at the time was that once this extreme weather became clear, climate action would be activated. But that hasn’t quite happened.”
There are good reasons for the lack of attention on the campaign trail—issues like the economy, immigration, and reproductive rights dominate the election debate, and climate ranks first among voters’ stated priorities. Opinion polls show that it is near the bottom of the list. Typically, only 5% of people cite it as their biggest concern.
However, climate may still prove to be important. The Environmental Voter Project, a nonpartisan group seeking to increase turnout among people who care about the environment but did not vote in the 2020 election or since, estimates that there are 230,000 such “climate voters” in Arizona. There are an estimated 250,000 people in Arizona. Pennsylvania, both important battleground states that were decided last time by just a few thousand votes.
“Climate change is not yet a top issue, but that doesn’t mean climate voters can’t have an impact in close elections,” said Nathaniel Stinnett, founder of the Environmental Voter Project. .
“It’s hard to predict what impact a hurricane will have, but it happened in the middle of an election, during early voting, so it’s hard to separate it from national politics. Whether it changes people’s opinions or not. I don’t know, but I’m sure people who are already concerned about climate change will become even more energized about the importance of voting.”
A study published earlier this year found that the narrow vote margin brought on by the climate crisis may have even ensured Biden’s victory over Trump in 2020, as rising concerns about climate change They estimate it has caused a significant 1.5% swing for the current president.
“When you’re this close to an election, you don’t need big effects to be meaningful,” said Matthew Burgess, an environmental researcher and co-author of the study.
“You may be an independent voter who doesn’t think climate change is the most important issue, but if someone says climate change isn’t real, you say, ‘Where are you getting your science from?’ You may wonder, can I trust you with other things?
The climate crisis has proved dire for many voters caught up in the outrage over Milton’s destructive course.
Juan Montenegro, a 75-year-old Chicagoan who moved to the Florida beach city of Sarasota with his wife Claire in 2017, has two conclusions from the effects of Hurricanes Helen and Milton, which struck the Sunshine State’s Gulf Coast twice in 2017. I brought it out. A span of 14 days. The opening game against Florida was over.
“There’s no reason to stay here at this point, so I’m leaving here and going back to Chicago,” he said, adding that they may put their downtown Sarasota apartments up for sale early next year once tens of thousands of people live there. He added that there was no. Birds known as snowbirds flee the upper Midwest and Canada to enjoy Florida’s unparalleled mild winters.
The aftermath of two extreme weather events also strengthened Montenegrins’ resolve to vote straight Democratic this fall. “This makes it even clearer that every reasonable person should vote Democratic,” he noted. “They may not be taking global warming and climate change as seriously as they should, but they’re more concerned about it than Republicans.”
However, Montenegro suspects that some local businesses and residents still do not understand the connection between rising ocean temperatures due to the climate crisis and the increasing frequency and ferocity of hurricanes and storm surges. There is. “It’s global warming and climate change that’s causing this, and it seems like more destruction is needed for more people to understand that this is not just a freak storm,” he said. .
Helen’s storm surge in late September flooded the Siesta Key townhouse owned by Sam and Joyce Tucker. The barrier island marks where Milton made landfall on the night of Wednesday, October 9, and the couple, who are in their 80s, had followed orders two days earlier to evacuate the barrier island.
The Tuckers will spend the rest of the year in their third-floor apartment at the nearby Villa Hermosa condominiums after the water level inside their two-bedroom bungalow rose to nearly a foot.
Joyce Tucker said the damage caused by the hurricane will not affect her decision to vote this fall. The former financial planner was already concerned about the short- and long-term effects of climate change long before a series of devastating storms hit Florida’s Gulf Coast, starting with Hurricane Ian in 2022.
But the Buffalo native wonders when exactly such weather events will persuade global warming skeptics to finally heed the warnings of scientists and environmentalists around the world. , I don’t know exactly. “It might happen, but probably not in my generation,” says Tucker. “But perhaps among the younger generation.”
