One corporate media outlet’s coverage of Hurricane Helene’s potential impact on the presidential election sparked widespread disgust: “Democrats are sick, sinister people.”

Disdain or outright hate has grown to be an increasingly common sentiment directed toward self-styled journalists and talking heads, along with the notion that those feelings fall short of what may actually be deserved.

Making the case for greater contempt, Politico’s reporting on how the hurricane could help steer a victory toward Vice President Kamala Harris over former President Donald Trump in November had many believing the outlet was “happy that Americans might be disenfranchised by a natural disaster.”

“It’s the first catastrophic event in U.S. history to hit two critical swing states within six weeks of a presidential election,” a Friday report detailed of the storm’s impact on Georgia and North Carolina, “based on a POLITICO’s E&E News analysis of data compiled by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.”

Specifically, it called out:

“The challenge for Trump: The parts of western North Carolina and eastern Georgia that were flooded by the monster storm are largely Republican. In 2020, he won 61 percent of the vote in the North Carolina counties that were declared a disaster after Helene. He won 54 percent of the vote in Georgia’s disaster counties.”

Politico further noted that the GOP leader currently was neck-and-neck with his Democratic Party rival with polls putting Trump’s slim lead within the margin of error.

While the report presented the potential response from officials to extend voter registration deadlines and time for absentee ballot submissions amid efforts to set up polling locations before Nov. 5, it remained in doubt if some voters would be able to get their votes submitted, “State records show that nearly 40,000 absentee ballots were mailed to voters in the 25 North Carolina counties that were declared a disaster following Helene. Fewer than 1,000 have been returned.”

North Carolina’s State Board of Elections Executive Director Karen Brinson Bell noted that a number of county election offices remained closed and a damage assessment of early voting sites and polling stations would be taken to decide “which facilities won’t be available.”

Politico was hardly alone in pointing out the favorable situation the devastating hurricane has presented for Harris’ election hopes as Democrat strategist David Axelrod went so far as to suggest “upscale, kind of liberal voters,” were going to figure out a way to vote whereas those in red counties “in the mountains there” would not be “as easy to wrangle for the Trump campaign.”

While pushback on the former adviser to then-President Barack Obama wondered if the election was impacting the Biden-Harris administration’s response to the disaster, the outcry against Politico seethed at the “gross” coverage that gave the impression they sounded “excited about it.”

So you are happy that Americans might be disenfranchised by a natural disaster? Gross…

— Christina Pushaw (@ChristinaPushaw) October 5, 2024

So, the abhorrent lack of federal response has been to punish these areas and ensure they’re too crippled come November to vote? Is that really what you want to suggest here?

— Abby Libby (@abbythelibb_) October 5, 2024

Try not to sound too excited about it…

— Clandestine (@WarClandestine) October 5, 2024

Yes.

FEMA blocking supply efforts might just starve his rural supporters to death.

For democracy.

— Cody Penn-Dent The Insufferable (@codypd) October 4, 2024

You can’t hate the media enough

— Brett Ryan Music (@BrettRyanBand) October 5, 2024

Imagine making this tweet when they’re still pulling bodies out of houses and mudslides.

— T. Ford (@ChimayBlue) October 5, 2024

Democrats are sick, sinister people. https://t.co/xQDwyo3Inb

— Terri Galvin (@TerriGalvin) October 5, 2024

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Kevin Haggerty

Staff Writer

Native of Brooklyn, NY, Kevin Haggerty is a graduate of Hunter College where he studied Cultural Anthropology and Geography. An avid reader and truth seeker, he currently resides in Texas with his wife and their dog and, when he isn't researching current events and their impacts, you'll find him spending time with friends and family or working on his next novel.

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