D - neither.

Hurricanes that hit the northeast aren't nearly as damaging as those that hit the south. This is a storm worth talking about, but it's nothing compared to the nor'easters that hit every winter.

In other words, it's a non-issue.

This was true in Massachusetts. Not so much in NY, NJ, PA.

this storm didn't change how people will vote in those states. maybe what Terrie said could be true, but life will be closer to being back to normal in a week.

Bush got re-elected after Katrina. I don't think Sandy will have an effect.

Does information irrelevant to government performance affect
voting behavior? If so, how does this help us understand the
mechanisms underlying voters’ retrospective assessments of candidates’
performance in office? To precisely test for the effects of irrelevant
information, we explore the electoral impact of local college
football games just before an election, irrelevant events that government
has nothing to dowith and forwhich no government response
would be expected.Wefindthat a win in the 10d before ElectionDay
causes the incumbent to receive an additional 1.61 percentage points
of the vote in Senate, gubernatorial, and presidential elections,with
the effect being larger for teams with stronger fan support. In addition
to conducting placebo tests based on postelection games, we
demonstrate these effects by using the betting market’s estimate
of a team’s probability of winning the gamebefore it occurs to isolate
the surprise component of game outcomes. We corroborate these
aggregate-level results with a survey that we conducted during the
2009NCAAmen’s college basketball tournament,wherewefindthat
surprising wins and losses affect presidential approval. An experiment
embedded within the survey also indicates that personal
well-being may influence voting decisions on a subconscious level.
We find that making people more aware of the reasons for their
current state of mind reduces the effect that irrelevant events have
on their opinions. These findings underscore the subtle power of
irrelevant events in shaping important real-world decisions and suggest
ways in which decision making can be improved.

With that said, I think the bigger potential effect here is on voter turnout. I doubt that it will swing the electoral college, since the most severely affected states are pretty solidly blue, but there are two interesting possibilities that I can envision:

(1) PA is currently running about 49/45 for Obama. If the storm disproportionately depresses turnout in (blue) southeastern PA, could that be enough to tip the state to Romney?

(2) The storm has no effect on the electoral college, and Obama happens to be the winner. But due to depressed voter turnout in PA, NY, NJ, CT, the nationwide popular vote tips to Romney.

Or, how about

(3) The storm depresses turnout equally between Democrats and Republicans, making the early voting (supposedly favoring Obama) proportionally more significant.

But, that's just one more guess. Realistically, I think there are too many variables to predict what the real impact will be.

Curt

This. Anything else is just wild speculation, and anything after the fact is wild conspiracy theory.

D - neither.

Hurricanes that hit the northeast aren't nearly as damaging as those that hit the south. This is a storm worth talking about, but it's nothing compared to the nor'easters that hit every winter.

In other words, it's a non-issue.

Well, there is the increased risk that Romney will double-back on his previous position of not supporting FEMA, but other than that, I'm no fortune teller.

Mitt's team scrambles with aftermath of FEMA comment and 'Romnesia'

Words have a way of coming back to haunt Mitt Romney, especially when he says them in front of television cameras.

As the nation braced itself for Hurricane Sandy to slam into the East Coast, Romney's campaign was busily issuing denials to clean up an impression left by last year's "severely conservative" Romney long before he recently was replaced by Moderate Mitt.

No, Team Romney insisted, their candidate does not really want to abolish the Federal Emergency Management Agency, even if his words make him sound like he does.

Confusing? Hey, we're talking about the newly restored Moderate Mitt, the candidate whose beliefs are like Chicago's weather: If you don't like 'em, just wait a few minutes...

You can't be this oblivious - can you? Nothing compared to a nor'easter?