North Carolina election officials are adjusting their voting rules to ensure residents in areas impacted by the recent hurricane damage can vote early in the upcoming election.

Hurricane Helene made a damaging sweep across the southeast, covering swing states that had already started early voting.

But the storm caused severe damage to several predominantly red counties and early voting centers as focus shifted to disaster relief.

On Monday, the North Carolina Elections Board passed a bipartisan emergency resolution that reformed the state’s early voting process in 13 counties. Notably, all except one, Buncombe, voted for former President Donald Trump in 2020.

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The adjustments include changing or adding voting sites and maintaining their availability, extending the hours when a voting site is open, and adding or reducing days that any site is open within the early voting period, according to the election board.

Voters in these counties will also have more time to request an absentee ballot, with the deadline being Nov. 4. 

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The state’s elections board identified 13 counties in western North Carolina as the most impacted by the hurricane.

The counties that will see the changes applied to their early voting processes include: Ashe, Avery, Buncombe, Haywood, Henderson, Madison, McDowell, Mitchell, Polk, Rutherford, Transylvania, Watauga, and Yancey.

Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks outside the Chez What furniture store as he visits Valdosta, Ga., a town impacted by Hurricane Helene, Monday, Sept. 30, 2024.  (Evan Vucci)

Voters in these counties will now have the option of turning in absentee ballots to another county’s election board, rather than following previous protocol that mandated they only submit their ballots to their local counties. 

Trump narrowly won North Carolina in 2020 by roughly 1.4 percentage points, and early voting has since been made a focus of Republican ground game efforts this cycle, the state’s GOP told Fox News Digital in a recent interview. 

The former president, however, told Fox News that he believes despite the storm’s impact, voters will still turn out for the election.

“I believe they’re going to go out and vote if they have to crawl to a voting booth,” Trump told Fox News’ Laura Ingraham in an interview that aired Monday. “And that’s what’s happening.”

Swannanoa residents walk through devastating flood damage from the Swannanoa River in western North Carolina on Sunday, Sept. 29, 2024.  (Travis Long/The News & Observer/Tribune News Service)

The former president added that his daughter-in-law, who co-chairs the Republican National Committee (RNC), is working on helping North Carolinians in impacted areas cast their votes.

“Lara is working on it. Other people are working on it, and we’re trying to make it convenient for them, but they just lost their house,” Trump said.

In-person early voting in the Old North State begins Thursday, Oct. 17 and ends on Saturday, Nov. 2.

For well over a month, Kamala Harris rode a wave of the most positive press any presidential candidate has gotten in two decades, and her own skills, to turn what had been a lost cause for the Democrats into an extremely tight race.

But does she have a second act?

Kamala 2.0, under constant attack by Donald Trump and the Republicans, doesn’t have much new to say. She is conducting a play-it-safe campaign, like a basketball team sitting on a lead and running out the clock.

But Harris doesn’t have a lead in the three “blue wall” midwestern states she needs to win, and the loss of any one of them could hand Trump the presidency once again.

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For all the focus on Pennsylvania, Harris leads by 0.7 percent in Michigan – a statistical tie, based on the Real Clear Politics average.

On Sunday’s “Media Buzz,” Democratic Rep. Debbie Dingell told me her state could go either way. 

“The vice president has a problem with union workers,” Dingell said. “Many of the men, as well as, quite frankly, African-American young men who have said to me, I was with a group with them last week. ‘You know what, Donald Trump talks to us. Democrats take us for granted.’”

The lawmaker recalls how “everybody got mad at me” when she predicted in 2016 that Trump would win Michigan – which he did, along with Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

A major problem for Harris is that she doesn’t seem to know how to make news. With less than 30 days to go, with many voters understandably believing they don’t know her, or enough about her policies, since she took over for Joe Biden, the VP is stitching together parts of her stump speech and recycling the same anecdotes virtually verbatim.

A presidential candidate has to deliver a few new lines, a new proposal, something to break into the news cycle, which is currently being dominated by Trump. 

So what’s on this week’s agenda? Kamala will sit down with Howard Stern (who is totally against his old pal Donald); “The View,” where the ladies despise Trump, and Stephen Colbert, who hosted fundraisers for Joe Biden in 2020 and this year.

For good measure, she’s also spoken to Alex Cooper, whose podcast, “Call Your Daddy,” is about sex.

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I’ll go out on a limb here and say these sessions are designed to be friendly – not unlike the conversation with MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle, who kept agreeing with Harris and had just pronounced Trump a danger to democracy. 

In fairness, Harris also sat for a “60 Minutes” interview, an invitation declined by Trump.

Look, there’s nothing wrong with candidates showing their softer side with unorthodox outlets in our fragmented media universe. We’ve come a long way since critics scoffed at candidate Bill Clinton answering the “boxers or briefs” question on MTV, calling it unpresidential. 

On “Call Your Daddy,” Harris was actually quite thoughtful in responding to Sarah Huckabee Sanders saying that her kids keep her humble and the VP doesn’t have anyone to keep her humble. 

(Rebecca Droke/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Rather than jab at the Arkansas governor, which would have produced a cheap headline, she ruminated that families come in all shapes, bound by blood or love, that she is deeply involved with her stepchildren, and this isn’t the 1950s anymore. They also discussed, uh, tampons.

Still, the party is getting nervous. “Democratic operatives, including some of Kamala Harris’ own staffers,” says Politico, “are growing increasingly concerned about her relatively light campaign schedule, which has her holding fewer events than Donald Trump and avoiding unscripted interactions with voters and the press almost entirely.”

Since the convention, the veep has spent more than a third of days on meeting and briefings, with no public events.

With early voting under way in more than half the states, Politico describes this “a do-no-harm, risk-averse approach to the race.” 

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Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan, who fervently doesn’t want Trump to win, nonetheless is whacks Harris pretty hard:

“She hasn’t fleshed out her political intent — what she stands for, what she won’t abide, what she means to establish, what she won’t let happen.

What is her essential mission? Is it national ‘repair,’ is it to ‘stabilize’ an uncertain country, is it ‘relaunch’?..

“She so far hasn’t conveyed a sense of intellectual grasp. Her campaign has placed too many chips on the idea of the mood, the vibe, the picture.”

And vibes can only take you so far.

But the VP has certain duties, and spent two days visiting hurricane victims and relief workers in North Carolina and Georgia–which also happens to be good politics. She also met with Volodomyr Zelenskyy.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy addresses the 79th United Nations General Assembly at U.N. headquarters in New York, U.S., September 25, 2024.  REUTERS/Mike Segar (REUTERS/Mike Segar)

Harris attended a fundraiser over the weekend. Why bother? Her campaign has already had $400 million roll in. She’s already outspending Trump 2-½ to 1 on ads. She doesn’t need any more money. What’s more, Harris doesn’t make news at these fundraisers, which in any event are off camera. A ground game is great, but it has to be married to a winning message.

Here’s one more: Dan Pfeiffer, a former top Obama White House official, says on Message Box, his Substack column, that “the media — and Politico Playbook in particular — are fuming over the Harris-Walz media strategy.”

Kamala “must be on offense at all times — say new things, be edgy enough to get attention, and dictate the terms, or the campaign could “take on water…In this media world, there is a never-ending, insatiable appetite for content. Either serve lunch or become the menu…

“Dominating attention is Trump’s political superpower…Even when he doesn’t have a big moment, Trump speaks so outrageously that it shifts attention to his issues of choice.”

Now it’s easy to snipe from the sidelines. For Harris to be neck and neck in the core battleground states means she’s obviously done many things right. She had to overhaul the Biden operation and vet a running mate while the campaign was in full swing, like changing the tires on a speeding hot rod. She could still win.

One positive sign: The Harris camp took off the bubble wrap and allowed Tim Walz to appear on “Fox News Sunday.” This was an attempt at damage control, since he lost the debate so badly to JD Vance.

While Shannon Bream repeatedly pressed the governor on late-term abortions, his Minnesota record and his history of falsehoods and exaggerations, Walz was far more forceful than he’d been in the CBS debate. He ducked certain questions, but an interview format is much better suited to him than friendly exchanges with his opponent.

Walz’s next stop? A man who relishes his feuds with Trump, Jimmy Kimmel.

Alex Cooper’s “Call Her Daddy” interview with Vice President Kamala Harris was not meant to “change your political affiliation,” the podcast host said, but she believes she would have been remiss to not have a conversation about women with the presidential candidate.

The podcaster opened Sunday’s episode with a disclosure about her decision to sit down with Harris — an interview that ignited a firestorm on social media among Cooper’s regular listeners, some of whom accused her of propagating talking points of the Democratic Party and its presidential nominee. Others were critical of Harris, who has eschewed hardball mainstream media interviews in favor of “friendly” or “safe” interviews instead.

Harris’ appearance on the podcast is part of a number of media appearances this week as she campaigns ahead of the Nov. 5 general election. Planned for this week are solo sit-downs with Howard Stern, Stephen Colbert and the panel of “The View.”

“Call Her Daddy” has amassed a wide following, particularly with young women who are drawn to Cooper’s takes on sex, dating and relationships, but the podcast, which she co-created in 2018 with former co-host Sofia Franklyn, also tackles current events and features interviews with people in the news and high-profile celebrities, such as Hailey Bieber, Jane Fonda, Gwyneth Paltrow, Janelle Monáe and John Legend.

Cooper, 30, knew it was unusual for her to interview the vice president and addressed that in the introduction of the episode, explaining that she had struggled for a while with the decision to get involved.

“As you guys know, I do not usually discuss politics or have politicians on the show because I want ‘Call Her Daddy’ to be a place that everyone feels comfortable tuning in,” Cooper said.

“But, at the end of the day, I couldn’t see a world in which one of the main conversations in this election is women and I’m not a part of it,” she said. “I am so aware I have a very mixed audience when it comes to politics, so please hear me when I say [that] my goal today is not to change your political affiliation. What I’m hoping is that you’re able to listen to a conversation that isn’t too different from the ones that we’re having here every week.”

The Los Angeles-based podcast host said she traveled to Washington, D.C., to conduct the face-to-face interview and was given 40 minutes with Harris. “No topic was off limits,” Cooper said. She said she prepared different versions of the interview that touched on topics including the economy, border control and fracking, but ultimately decided to stay in her wheelhouse.

“The conversation I know I’m qualified to have is the one surrounding women’s bodies and how we are treated and valued in this country,” she said.

Acknowledging that “this isn’t a one-sided conversation,” Cooper’s team also reached out to Harris’ opponent, former President Trump, to invite him on the show.

“If he also wants to have a meaningful, in-depth conversation about women’s rights in this country, then he is welcome on ‘Call Her Daddy’ any time,” she said.

Harris told Cooper that she was feeling “great and nervous” going into the final stretch of campaigning and praised Cooper at the top of the interview.

“You and you listeners have really got this thing right, which is one of the best ways to communicate with people is to be real and to talk about the things that people really care about. … Your voice and your show is really about your listeners,” Harris said. “And I think especially now, this a moment in the country and in life, where people really want to know they’re seen and heard and that they’re part of a community. That they’re not out there alone and so I’m really glad to be with you.”

The two also discussed how Harris deals with doubt, attacks on her character, the overturning of Roe vs. Wade, sexual abuse in the U.S. and how to make the country safer for women.

After the episode was uploaded, Cooper posted a separate “Get Ready With Me” video on Instagram. In it, she took her 3.2 million followers behind the scenes before and after the interview, including her thoughts along the way.

“I’m going to be honest, when I started ‘Call Her Daddy,’ I really didn’t see it heading in the direction where I would be sitting down with the vice president of the United States. But, like, dream big, kids!” she said.

“I’m nervous, excited. I know I’m gonna do my best and not everyone is going to be pleased with what I say and do, but we’re keeping this ‘Call Her Daddy’ and that’s all I can do,” she said. Then, after the sit-down, Cooper added: “I have never in my life felt like an interview went by so fast. I knew I couldn’t hit every policy, so I did what I knew would apply to the Daddy Gang and I talked about women. I totally understand everyone has different political opinions. I feel really good that the entire episode is about women.”

While some of Cooper’s former fans said they were “disgusted” by the interview, swore off listening to her or announced they would unfollow her, others came to Cooper’s defense.

“These comments are hilarious. You are following a sex positive pro women’s rights podcast and expect her to support Trump,” one follower wrote in the video’s comments section.

“Some of these comments are sooooo wild to me,” another said. “Are you not remembering the ab0rtion episode or how she brought on a gynecologist or how she constantly talks about reproductive justice & s*xual health? She has BEEN doing this and I am so glad she is.”

“LOVE THIS!!!!! and if you don’t….. this isn’t an airport. you don’t need to announce your departure,” wrote another.

Cooper began “Call Her Daddy” under Barstool Sports, but in 2021 left the media company for Spotify under a deal reportedly worth $60 million. With Spotify, she expanded the podcast’s reach and burnished its reputation, becoming a go-to platform for celebrities. In August, Cooper signed a multi-year deal with SiriusXM reportedly worth $125 million.

The podcast, which boasts millions of listeners per episode, has a 4.1 star rating on Spotify and ranks among the platform’s top 5 podcasts — the most listened to among women. It reportedly averages 5 million weekly listeners.

Times staff writer Alexandra Del Rosario contributed to this report.