With Hurricane Sandy taking aim at the northeast, the monster storm expected to wreck havoc on a huge swath of the country is already shaking up the presidential race a little more than a week before election.
The presidential candidates, whose campaigns have reached a fever pitch eight days before Election Day, are scrambling to figure out what to do with their schedules as Hurricane Sandy barrels toward the northeast.
“The storm will throw havoc into the race,” Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., said on Fox News Sunday, noting that a Monday rally with Obama and former President Bill Clinton has already been canceled.
President Barack Obama and presidential candidate Mitt Romney have both cancelled events and Obama moved up his departure for Florida to beat the storm.
In an extraordinarily tight race, Hurricane Sandy has forced Obama and Republican Mitt Romney to toss out carefully mapped-out itineraries as the candidates work to maximize voter turnout while avoiding any suggestion they were putting politics ahead of public safety. Romney canceled plans to campaign in Virginia on Sunday, opting instead to join running mate Paul Ryan in Ohio.
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David Axelrod, a top adviser to Obama’s campaign, said it was impossible to predict how the storm would affect the election but acknowledged it could drive down turnout to Obama’s detriment.
“Obviously, we want unfettered access to the polls, because we think the more people that come out, the better we’re going to do,” Axelrod said on CNN’s State of the Union. ”And so, to the extent that it makes it harder, that’s a source of concern.” Read the full article on FOX NEWS Latino.
