In my most recent post, I scratched my head about whether Hurricane Helene would depress the vote in the counties she hit the hardest – and, more specifically, whether the fact that she ravaged much more Republican than Democratic territory might impact the outcome of the presidential race in Georgia.

Now that we’ve got the first full week of early voting under our belt and nearly 1.5 million votes have already been cast, the answer to the first question is, so far at least, absolutely. 

The answer to the second one remains uncertain.  Georgia’s political waters seem muddier and murkier than ever.

First things first.  Through Sunday’s early voting, the 53 Georgia counties approved for “individual assistance” by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) were lagging the other 106 counties outside Helene’s path of destruction by 2.2 percentage points.  These 53 “individual assistance” counties (shown on the map at right) were almost certainly the hardest hit by the storm, and their 2.1 million residents are now eligible for various kind of government help, including cash, housing, and transportation.

Before the early-voting polls opened again on Monday morning, 17.8% of the 6.67 million registered voters in the 106 counties largely outside Helene’s path had already voted; the same was true of only 15.6% of the 1.53 million registered voters in the 53 “individual assistance” counties, which sprawl across most of southeast Georgia, from the Florida line north to Augusta and and up the eastern edge of the state (and, for some reason, also include Butts and Newton counties).

Those counties had cast 239,172 votes by the time the polls closed on Sunday.  If they had voted at the same 17.8% rate as the other 106 counties, they would have banked nearly 33,000 additional votes.

The real question, though, is whether the weather would help or hurt either Kamala Harris or Donald J. Trump.  Forty-seven of the 53 hardest-hit counties sided with Trump, the Republican nominee, over Joe Biden in 2020; 43 gave him at least 60 percent of their vote, and several went for him by margins of nearly 10-to-1.  Would Helene put a dent in those numbers this time around?

Here’s where the political waters begin to get muddy and murky, and Team Harris shouldn’t start popping the champagne corks just yet.

First, an important, if obvious, caveat: the fact that a traditionally Republican county’s turnout is down a bit doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s Republican voters who aren’t showing up – and here’s a wrinkle that probably ought to worry Democrats.

Thirty-eight counties gave Trump at least 75% of their votes in 2020.  This includes 10 “individual assistance” counties in Helene’s path of destruction and 28 not seriously impacted by the storm. 

So far, voter turnout in the 10 storm-ravaged 75% Trump counties has actually been just a hair higher than in the other 28 counties.  The 10 “individual assistance” counties have turned out at a 19.19% rate versus 18.98% for the other 28 counties.  In other words, voters in the strongest pro-Trump counties haven’t let wind and rain of Biblical proportions keep them away from the polls so far.

Here’s another thing that ought to worry Democrats.  In the 2020 presidential election, Biden and the Democrats won the mail vote battle.  Trump famously decried the use of mail-in votes, and many of his supporters apparently bought into his complaints.  Biden wound up with nearly twice as many mail votes as Trump – 848,726 to 450,522.  The split between Democratic and Republican counties was remarkably similar: 823,757 mail votes were cast in the 30 Democratic counties versus 491,537 in the 129 GOP counties.

So far this year, the 129 Republican counties are casting more mail ballots than the 30 Democratic counties.  Through Sunday’s voting, 47,626 mail votes had been cast in the GOP counties versus 32,476 in the Democratic counties.  Interestingly, substantially more mail ballots had been applied for in the Democratic counties – 164,902 to 121,085 in the Republican counties – but the Democratic return rate is obviously much lower, only about half what the Republican counties are doing.

So, you’re probably thinking right about now, isn’t there some good news for the Democrats?

Let me check.

Hmmm, still checking.

Gimme another minute here.

Well, maybe a little, but not much.  The only real piece of good news I can find for the Democrats is that they apparently outnumber the Republicans.  The 30 Democratic counties are home to nearly 600,000 more actual registered voters.  But so far at least, any way you slice the data, voters in Democratic counties aren’t turning out at the same pace as their neighbors in the GOP counties.

In fact, if Republicans are taking a turnout hit in the 47 “individual assistance” counties hit by Helene, Democrats are suffering a similar overall lag in their 30 counties. The two might well offset one another.

Overall, through Sunday’s voting, the 30 Democratic counties had a “lead” of just under 47,000 votes.  They had cast 703,418 votes to 641,593 for the 129 Republican counties.  They lead in-person voting by nearly 62,000 votes but trail in mail votes by just over 15,000.  Net, the Democratic counties’ advantage is 46,675 votes.

Well, you might say, that’s something.  True, but probably not enough.  In 2020, Trump beat Biden in election day voting by 224,928 votes, but Biden had banked enough mail and early votes to hang on and win by 11,799 votes.  Assuming the Democrat-Republican county split is a rough proxy for the current state of the Harris-Trump race, the vice president needs to pile up a lot more votes between now and November 5^th.

It’s time for Team Harris to get its vaunted ground game in gear.

Charles Hayslett is the author of the long-running troubleingodscountry.com blog.  He is also the Scholar in Residence at the Center for Middle Georgia Studies at Middle Georgia State University.  The views expressed in his columns are his own and are not necessarily those of the Center or the University.