The Sandy Effect Enters the Campaign

After more than a year of campaigning and more than $2 billion spent, the November 6 elections may also depend on hurricane Sandy, which threatens New York and the rest of the East Coast of the United States. The chaos, which may reach the Midwest, endangers votes and rallies.

Nine days until the election, the hurricane has already changed the campaigns. Mitt Romney decided to cancel his trip to Virginia and is staying in Ohio for at least two days. The president has opted to cancel his campaign trips this Monday and Wednesday to West Virginia and Colorado. Neither of the two states is on alert, but Barack Obama will stay in the White House to keep an eye on the development of the hurricane. His wife will also not travel on Wednesday to New Hampshire, as was planned.

The hurricane may already have a direct impact on the polls. Early, in-person voting has begun in 31 states, including Ohio and Virginia, and according to information from the campaigns, Obama has the advantage in the first wave of votes. Blacks and Hispanics, traditionally the most pro-abstention, may be the first to give up if there are adverse meteorological conditions. These are the two groups of voters where Obama is beating Romney by up to 50 points according to polls.

The president may be the most vulnerable in front of a catastrophe and could have to stop campaigning. This Saturday, Democrats worked to take advantage of the crisis as a reminder that Obama has duties more serious than rallies. “This an example yet again of the president having to put his responsibilities as commander-in-chief and leader of the country first while at the same time he pursues his responsibilities as a candidate for re-election,” said Josh Earnest, a spokesperson for the White House.

It’s predicted that Sandy will hit this Monday in the southern part of New Jersey. Nine states have declared a state of emergency: New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Virginia, Maryland, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and North Carolina. About 50 million people live in the affected region.

Evacuation of Coastal Zones

Additionally, snow and torrential rain is expected to reach Ohio. More than 60,000 members of the National Guard are mobilized to help in the case of floods, water shortages, and power outages. Meteorologists say that Sandy may be worse than Irene, the hurricane that hit the East Coast in August of 2011, and could even get the title of the worst storm in the history of the area. Before its pass through the Caribbean, the hurricane killed at least 44 people and left more than 200,000 homeless.

Michael Bloomberg, the mayor of New York, asked the citizens to stock up on food and to avoid parks beginning this Sunday. Some supermarkets already require that lines form on the street in order to control capacity in front of the hundreds of anxious people. City Hall is considering shutting down the subway and halting the rest of public transportation in the hours before Sandy’s arrival.

Chris Christie, the governor of New Jersey who declined various times to be the Republican presidential candidate this year, also returns to the front lines. He has already ordered the evacuation in coastal areas, including Atlantic City. Christie, with his usual ease, insisted that the alert is serious: “Everyone’s saying, ‘This is crap, it isn’t going to happen — the weathermen always get it wrong, so I’m just going to hang out here.’ Please don’t, OK? We have to be prepared for the worst here.”