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Debris from a flood on the Rocky Broad River in Lake Lure, North Carolina, following Hurricane Helene.

This story is part of State of Emergency, a Grist series exploring how climate disasters are impacting voting and politics. It is published with support from the CO2 Foundation.

There are battleground states, and then there’s North Carolina. Former President Donald Trump won the state by 1.3 percent in 2020, his lowest margin of victory in any state, and polls now show Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris within just 2 percentage points of each other there. It also has more electoral votes than several of the other swing states that will decide the November election, including Michigan, Wisconsin, and Arizona.

“Kamala Harris wins North Carolina, she is the next president of the United States,” Roy Cooper, the Democratic governor of North Carolina, said at an event in New York City last week.

Then Hurricane Helene etched a 500-mile path of destruction through the southeastern United States, killing at least 139 people in six states and causing more than $100 billion in damages, according to preliminary estimate... Read more

Zoya Teirstein & Jake Bittle Extreme Weather

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Climate Solutions

Featured

Flood-ravaged North Carolina races to restore voting access after Helene

All Stories

‘You basically have free hot water’: how Cyprus became a world leader in solar heating

‘What If We Get It Right?’ Preventing a climate apocalypse might start with imagining something better

Net-zero targets are everywhere. But to be effective, they need accountability.

The secret ingredient in Biden’s climate law? City trees.

Climate migration doesn’t look like you think it does

London saw a surprising benefit to fining high-polluting cars: More active kids

Can we eat our way out of the climate crisis?

In coal-rich Kentucky, a new green aluminum plant could bring jobs and clean energy

What if nature had a voice in legislation? A ‘planetary parliament’ could give it one.

Climate change is drastically changing life for Indigenous peoples in the Pacific