TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) – Presidential politics resumed in the key battlegrounds of Florida and North Carolina on Monday, though some campaign offices remain closed and a legal dispute over voter registration lingers after Hurricane Matthew battered the Atlantic coastline, leaving behind fatalities, property damage and widespread power outages.
Republican vice presidential nominee Mike Pence was in western North Carolina on Monday, while Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton was planning to visit south Florida on Tuesday. GOP hopeful Donald Trump was also to campaign in Florida the next two days with stops in three cities that are usually GOP strongholds.
Yet the storm’s interruptions could yield even marginal effects on voter turnout efforts by campaigns of Clinton and Trump. North Carolina and Florida remain close, even as Clinton appears to be taking a commanding national lead. And going days without door-knocking and phone-banking around Fayetteville, North Carolina, or registering voters around Jacksonville, Florida, is enough to make Republican and Democratic aides nervous.
“The time for politics will come back, and it will just have to take care of itself,” said Dallas Woodhouse, executive director of the North Carolina Republican Party, which together with the Republican National Committee leads voter turnout efforts for Trump and the rest of the GOP slate.
Woodhouse said GOP campaign offices remained closed in Fayetteville, Greenville and Wilmington.