Hendersonville, North Carolina — The devastation of Hurricane Helene has not dampened the spirits — or suppressed early voting turnout — in storm-ravaged western North Carolina.
“It’s a phenomenal turnout, but you’re actually seeing quite a bit fewer today because we’ve opened up three additional locations around the county,” said Brett Calloway, chairman of the Henderson County Republican Party.
“So we were setting records, still setting records, every day on turnout, but now it's spread over four locations instead of just the one,” Calloway told Blaze News at a polling station. “That happened late last week. And we’ve had 3,000 to 4,000 every day.
"In 2016, which was a good turnout, 72% turnout, we were having 1,600, 1,800 a day. So we're doubling that.”
Calloway said voters have been motivated not just by the failures coming out of Washington but also the anemic federal hurricane relief response.
“They were motivated before with the failures of the Biden and Harris administration, but even more so after that, and you can see it with the turnout,” he said. “The turnout has been very high.
'They are determined to come vote.'
“We’ve got a hundred counties in North Carolina, and [in] none of the counties have the Democrats performed at previous levels,” Calloway said. “In other words, they’ve underperformed every single county."
“We have overperformed. So we’re very motivated,” he said. “We’re fed up with what we’ve seen in the administration, and their response here to the storm has just put fuel on the fire.”
‘Tremendous’ devastation
Calloway said the storm damage still makes travel inconvenient, but it does not stop the voters from coming out.
“The devastation was tremendous. Still, coming in here, I had to go alternate routes to get around bridges that were out," he said. “And there are a lot of trees still down. Most of the county is now able to get where they need to go, but it's not as convenient as it had been.
“So that's been a real challenge, but what I will tell you is those areas that were most affected have not seen a drop off on their turnout. They are determined to come vote,” Calloway said.
Ryn Riley, a first-time voter, said she drove two hours from her university to make her voice heard.
“I'm here to vote for the candidate that I think will better our country,” Riley said at a polling station in Hendersonville. She said the abortion issue motivated her to vote for Donald J. Trump for president.
Ryn Riley, a student at East Tennessee State University, made the two-hour drive to vote at her home polling station in Hendersonville, North Carolina.Photo by Steve Baker/Blaze News
“I think that is really sad that people are trying to promote abortion and promote that to be a free will,” she said. “And I think that it's wrong to murder because I think that life begins at conception. And so that one for me is a really big one.”
Riley said her position on abortion is in the minority at school and among her peers.
“There’s not many people who believe what I believe. Most people are pro-choice — or pro-abortion, as I call it,” Riley said. “That baby, even from day one, has the rights of [an] American citizen, and one of those rights is the right to live.
“I think that they’re just, it’s like a nonverbal person. They still have rights, even though they can’t speak. They’re in the womb, and I need to speak up for them because they can’t speak up for themselves yet.”
A Democrat poll-greeter at the Hendersonville polling station said she has noticed strong support for Trump among Hispanics and younger voters.
“Well, I’ve previously volunteered in Buncombe County, and I’m kind of just discouraged to see in Henderson County the number of Latinos and young people that are voting for the Republicans,” Michelle Persons told Blaze News. “And I can tell that by which voter guide they accept and which one they don’t accept. And I’d say a lot of Latinos are voting for Trump, and I don't get it.”
Persons said she has seen a similar trend among younger voters.
“I see a lot of young people that are voting for Trump, and I don’t get it,” Persons said. “I think they must be influenced by their family members, and they haven’t formed an educated opinion yet.”
Michelle Persons, a Democratic poll-greeter in Henderson County, North Carolina, said Hispanics and younger voters are trending toward former President Donald J. Trump. “I don't get it,” she said.Photo by Steve Baker/Blaze News
Persons said her second home in Buncombe County was swept down the river by the massive floods. She said dealing with the Federal Emergency Management Agency has been frustrating.
“So it’s been kind of disappointing. I mean, I don’t want to believe it because I'm a Democrat, and I don't want to believe that you can't depend on FEMA, because I know there’s people getting help, and I know I probably will eventually get help, but the process has been cumbersome and it makes you want to give up.”
Carolyn Stewart, vice chairwoman of Moms for Liberty in Buncombe County, said Trump’s Oct. 22 visit to Swannanoa was a morale boost for the region. Her husband, Mike Stewart, was among those who met with Trump during his visit.
“When he hugged him, he felt his heartbeat,” she said. “That's what he told me. And he said it was beating for all of us, for America, not just for western North Carolina.”
Stewart, who was volunteering at a polling location in Black Mountain, said she has seen communities come together and residents help make sure each other can get out to vote.
President Trump's visit to the area on Oct. 22 was uplifting, says Buncombe County Moms for Liberty Vice Chair Carolyn Stewart.Photo by Steve Baker/Blaze News
“I was surprised at the effort ... that neighbors are supplying rides, and it’s so good,” she said. “And some of them couldn’t get out of their driveways, even in very affluent neighborhoods. They couldn’t because of trees or mud or blockage of cars. And people uniting to help each other. Yes, I've seen that.”
Roxanne Wetzel, former McDowell County GOP chairwoman and one of the Electoral College voters for the 11th Congressional District of North Carolina, said there has been record early voting turnout.
“We’ve been pushing that very strongly,” she said. “We will see it in the tale of the tape. [For] recovery for western North Carolina, [it's] imperative that we elect our conservative slate of candidates.”
Wetzel said voters have taken notice of who came to help after the storms.
“The citizens of western North Carolina know who came to help. It wasn’t our current administration in the governor’s mansion in North Carolina. It was our lieutenant governor who’s running for governor [Mark Robinson]. It was the citizens. Mountain people helping mountain people. They saw who came to help.”
The North Carolina legislature voted to open a second voting location in McDowell County with almost total bipartisan support, she said.
“Only two Democrats in the house voted against it,” she said. “Otherwise, it was unanimous in the House and Senate to mandate that we open up our second voting location in the most hardest hit area of McDowell County for the hurricane so that they have access to voting.”
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