Harris goes to North Carolina to resume campaigning in a state hit hard by Hurricane Helene

WASHINGTON (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris will meet with Black leaders in North Carolina on Saturday and attend church and hold a rally in the state on Sunday, according to her campaign.

The weekend trip is her second to the battleground state after it was struck by Hurricane Helene, with Harris stepping back into campaign mode in a place that Democrats see as a potential pick-up in November’s election. North Carolina narrowly backed Republican Donald Trump in 2020.

The Democratic presidential nominee went to North Carolina last week to survey the destruction caused by Helene and pledged assistance for its victims. She was to attend church Sunday as part of her campaign’s “Souls to the Polls” effort in Greenville, a city of roughly 90,000 on the state’s coastal plain.

Before departing the Washington area, 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.” She also said she would be talking about her plan to create an “opportunity economy.”

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.

Later Saturday, Harris will meet with local Black elected, faith and community leaders at a restaurant in Raleigh, in addition to helping volunteers who are preparing relief supplies for hurricane victims.

After church on Sunday, Harris plans to speak about the economy at a campaign rally to generate support for early voting, which begins 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, in addition to virtually attending briefings on the federal government’s response and rejiggering her campaign schedule. But she’s also 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.”