Former President Donald Trump expressed hope that North Carolina’s Hurricane Helene survivors would vote him in as “part of a new crew” on Election Day as he looks to shore up support in a battleground state he said the government had abandoned. 

With the latest polls showing Trump in a dead heat with Vice President Kamala Harris to win the Tar Heel State, the former president made a pitch to voters disillusioned with the Biden administration’s disaster relief response on Monday. With at least 95 North Carolinians dead from the storm, and more than 50 people across the state missing, Trump went to the western part of the state, which was particularly devastated by the storm, and later rallied supporters in Greenville, North Carolina.