Trump visits North Carolina after Helene storm damage and calls for easier voting access for those affected

Former President Donald Trump visited the mountainous city of Asheville, North Carolina, a pivotal state that was hit by Storm Helene and that the Republican is bound to win on his way back to the White House.

Trump's speech focused on three main points: the resilience of the state's citizens in the face of Helene's wreckage, the Biden-Harris administration's response to the emergency and the call for easier access to voting for those affected. The majority of hard-hit residents live in the rural counties that the former Republican president needs to counter the stream of progressive votes that will come from the blue urban centers, such as Charlotte and Raleigh.

Trump stressed during his address that he is the "first" presidential candidate to go to rural North Carolina since 95 people died and hundreds of homes and businesses were devastated as a result of the storms.

Unlike previous campaign days, where the Republican front-runner adopted a more relaxed rhetoric, Trump gave a more solemn speech, showing himself as impacted emotionally by the damage caused by the storm.

He also took the opportunity to slam the current Democratic administration.

"Many Americans in this region felt helpless and abandoned and left behind by their government," Trump told reporters. "And yet, in North Carolina’s hour of desperation, the American people answered the call much more so than your federal government."

The former president also said he would support Congress returning early from recess to approve more disaster response funding for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

"You know, in theory they’re supposed to have it, but they spent a lot of money on bringing illegal migrants, people that came into our country illegally, and taking them in and all of the money they spent. Numbers that nobody can even believe. So they don’t have any money for people that live here," said Trump, who called FEMA's response a "disgrace."

Since the strong impact of Storm Helene, Trump's campaign has began advocating for flexibilities in the election system so that all affected voters can vote early.

Appearing in Asheville, Trump acknowledged the effort of voters in the western part of the state who came out to cast their ballots.

"The thing that amazes me most is areas such as this and others, where it’s so hard to vote," the former president said. "People have lost their homes. They’ve sometimes lost members of their family. You know, they’ve set a record in voting. Can you believe it?"

According to a critical report in the Washington Post, the changes requested by the Trump campaign range from allowing voters affected by the storm to cast their vote by mail at any county or state election office in North Carolina to allowing counties to open new polling places and modify their early voting schedules.

The newspaper claims this represents a change in Trump's stance from his rhetoric during the COVID-19 pandemic, but the Republican front-runner's campaign disagrees.

"The county boards in North Carolina need to act quickly to make adjustments," Trump political director James Blair said of citizens affected by Helene. "They cannot disenfranchise voters, and we’re prepared to do whatever it takes to keep that from happening."