Harris helps pack aid boxes for North Carolina hurricane victims ahead of Sunday campaign push

Associated Press

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris on Saturday helped pack diapers into boxes of personal care products destined for North Carolina hurricane victims, agreeing with one helper who said “it takes a village.”

“You’re exactly right,” Harris replied to Greg Hatem, owner of The Pit Authentic Barbecue restaurant as she put two packages of diapers inside each cardboard box that was placed in front of her assembly-line style.

Harris met with Black leaders at the barbecue restaurant in Raleigh before she joined volunteers who were there to pack bandages, baby formula, baby wipes, pain relief pills and other items for victims of Hurricane Helene, which tore through western North Carolina last month.

The vice president was overnighting in the state, which narrowly backed her rival, Republican Donald Trump, in 2020. Democrats are campaigning hard to flip North Carolina into their column in the presidential election next month. On Sunday, Harris was attending church in Greenville as part of her campaign’s “Souls to the Polls” effort to get out the vote and holding a rally.

The weekend trip was her second to the battleground state after it was struck by Hurricane Helene. The Democratic presidential nominee went to North Carolina last Saturday to survey the aftermath of Helene and pledged federal assistance for its victims.

Before her plane left Washington, Harris told reporters accompanying her that she looked forward to talking with residents “first and foremost to see how they’re doing in the wake of the hurricane.”

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.

At The Pit, Harris met with Black elected, faith and community leaders. Her campaign did not release a list of the people she met with.

After church on Sunday, Harris, a Baptist, was set to speak about her economic plans at a rally to generate support for early voting, which starts Thursday in North Carolina.

Making landfall on Sept. 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, Hurricane Milton hit Florida this week and generated an estimated $50 billion worth of damage and left several people dead.

Harris also visited Georgia after Helene struck there, too, in addition to virtually attending briefings on the federal government’s response and rejiggering her campaign schedule. She continued to travel for the presidential race with time spent this week 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 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 during 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 “un-American” and told his predecessor to “get a life, man.”