By JOSH BOAK Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris is meeting with Black leaders in North Carolina on Saturday and will attend church in the state ahead of a rally, according to her campaign.
The weekend trip is her second time in the battleground state after it was struck by Hurricane Helene, with Harris stepping back into campaign mode in a place that many Democrats see as a potential pick-up in November’s election.
The Democratic presidential nominee went to North Carolina last week to survey the destruction caused by Helene and pledged assistance for its victims. She plans to attend church Sunday as part of a “Souls to the Polls” effort in Greenville, a city of roughly 90,000 people on the coastal plain of a state that narrowly backed Republican Donald Trump in 2020.
Democrats view North Carolina as swinging their way this year with its base of Black and college-educated voters, as well as women concerned about the loss of abortion protections. But the aftermath of Hurricane Helene has become a political flashpoint with former President Trump and his allies attacking the Biden administration’s response to the natural disaster.
On Saturday evening, Harris will meet with local Black elected, faith and community leaders at a restaurant in Raleigh, in addition to working with volunteers who are preparing relief supplies for hurricane victims.
After church on Sunday, Harris plans to speak about the economy at a rally to generate support ahead of the start of early voting in North Carolina beginning on Thursday.
Making landfall on September 26, Hurricane Helene resulted in the deaths of roughly 230 people and wiped out roads, electrical power and cell phone service. Just two weeks later on Wednesday, Hurricane Milton made landfall in Florida and generated an estimated $50 billion worth of damage and left several people dead.
Harris has also visited Georgia after Helene struck, in addition to virtually attending briefings on the response efforts and rejiggering her campaign schedule. But she’s also continued travel to travel for the presidential race with time spent in Nevada and Arizona.
One of her prime messages has been that there should be no price gouging by companies seeking to take advantage of shortages caused by the hurricanes, an issue that she has made central to her campaign as a way to tackle inflation.
“To any company or individual that is using this crisis to jack up prices through illegal fraud or price gouging, whether it be at the gas pump, the airport or the hotel counter, we will be monitoring and there will be a consequence,” Harris said at Friday’s briefing.
But Trump and his allies have falsely suggested that disaster relief from the Federal Emergency Management Agency went to immigrants instead of hurricane victims, while also suggesting that people are not getting the full financial support to which they’re legally entitled.
At a recent rally in Reading, Pennsylvania, Trump said the response has been worse than how the government handled 2005’s Hurricane Katrina, which left nearly 1,400 people dead and caused $200 billion in damages.
“North Carolina’s been hit very hard and this administration has not done a proper job at all. Terrible, terrible,” Trump said at the rally, adding that Harris was “on a fundraising comedy tour while people are stranded and drowning all over some of our greatest states.”
President Joe Biden has called Trump’s falsehoods about the government’s response to the hurricanes “un-American” and told his predecessor to “get a life, man.”