Many in NC are unhappy with FEMA, but should it be closed? What a new poll says
Six months after Helene battered North Carolina, many residents are not happy with the state’s progress in recovering from the disastrous storm, according to a new poll released Thursday.
In addition to saying they were unsatisfied with the recovery efforts, a fair amount of respondents agreed with President Donald Trump that it would be better to fully eliminate the Federal Emergency Management Agency and instead provide disaster relief directly to states.
Researchers at Elon University found this data, alongside insights into North Carolinians’ views on Gov. Josh Stein, the state Supreme Court and more, after conducting a poll of 800 adults between March 3 and March 11. The poll had a margin of error of 4.04%.
What North Carolinians think of Helene recovery
Elon’s poll found that 46% of respondents were very or somewhat unsatisfied with the state’s progress on recovering from Helene. A smaller share, 37%, said they were very or somewhat satisfied.
Researchers also asked respondents their opinions on the recovery response by federal, state and local agencies. More respondents, 39%, said it was poor or very poor, than the 26% who said the response was good or very good.
Responses to that question varied depending on the respondent’s political affiliation. Most Republicans, 58%, said they were dissatisfied with the recovery progress, compared to 36% of Democrats.
When asked specifically about FEMA, 43% of all respondents rated the agency’s performance as poor or very poor and only 25% said the agency’s work was good or very good.
Jason Husser, director of the Elon University Poll, said FEMA has had a bad reputation ever since Hurricane Katrina nearly 20 years ago.
“It’s hard to have a win when you’re a disaster response agency, because the times you’re in the news are a time when there’s a mass tragedy going on,” he said.
While 39% of respondents said they would support getting rid of FEMA completely, the responses largely broke down along party lines. The vast majority of Republicans, 73%, supported eliminating the agency, while nearly the same amount of Democrats, 72%, opposed doing so.
Husser said he could see public opinion shifting on this topic if such an elimination resulted in fewer resources for disaster-prone states like North Carolina.
“FEMA is a mechanism to channel resources from from less risk-prone places to more risk-prone places,” he said. “... if you’re a state prone to earthquakes or hurricanes — the most costly natural disasters — that is not distributed evenly by population. So that could mean less dollars would go to some of these disaster-prone states.”
Stein’s approval ratings
As newly elected Democratic Gov. Josh Stein closes out his third month in office, 44% of poll respondents said they approved of his performance so far, while 17% said they disapproved.
The responses come after Stein achieved a landslide victory in the governor’s race, beating his scandal-plagued Republican opponent, former Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, by 15 points.
At around the same time in Gov. Roy Cooper’s first term in office, he had a slightly higher approval rating at 48%, according to a 2017 poll. However, Stein’s disapproval is significantly lower than Cooper’s at that time, which was 29%.
“At the time, Cooper had a hard-won campaign with a recount election,” Husser said. “Stein, on the other hand... was the beneficiary of the Republican Party’s collapse of the gubernatorial campaign. So he’s in a historically unique position for popularity.”
Another 39% of respondents said they were unsure how they felt about Stein’s performance, significantly higher than the 21% of unsure responses Cooper received in the 2017 poll.
“The ‘unsures’ are higher on Stein because he did not have a traditionally competitive campaign, simply because Robinson’s performance was so bad,” Husser said. “If I were Stein’s adviser, I would tell him that third of North Carolinians don’t really know much about him yet.”
Confidence in NC Supreme Court
As North Carolina approaches nearly five months of litigation over a still-unresolved state Supreme Court election, Elon’s poll collected data on how confident residents are in the high court.
Democratic incumbent Allison Riggs narrowly won November’s Supreme Court race by 734 votes, but her opponent, Republican Court of Appeals Judge Jefferson Griffin, has challenged over 65,000 ballots cast in the election.
His battle to overturn the results has persisted for months and drawn national attention from critics, who argue that if successful, his case could form the playbook for challenging election results across the country.
According to the poll, 44% of North Carolinians have a lot or some confidence in the state Supreme Court, while 35% have not much or no confidence in the court.
Husser said Republicans were more likely to have confidence in the Supreme Court, which has a 5-2 Republican majority, but the poll found skepticism among both parties.
“I think part of that is a broader national movement of distrust in institutions of power,” he said, noting that Republicans nationally are unhappy with federal judges blocking actions from the Trump administration.
The confidence numbers are notably lower than a decade ago, when nearly 66% of respondents to a 2015 Elon poll said they had confidence in North Carolina’s state courts.
Views on concealed carry legislation
A majority of North Carolinians oppose legislation proposed by the General Assembly to allow residents to carry a concealed handgun without a permit, Elon’s poll found.
The poll comes nearly a week after the state Senate voted along party lines to pass a bill removing the permit requirement. The House has advanced a similar bill.
While 54% of respondents said they did not support the legislation, 34% said they did.
Elon’s poll found that the bill did not reach majority support among Republicans, 48% of whom said they would support it. Another 38% of Republicans said they opposed the proposal, while 14% said they were unsure.
Only 17% of Democratic respondents said they supported the bill, while 75% of Democrats said they did not.
Husser said the lack of support for removing the requirement may be “because people perceive North Carolina as already having a relatively straightforward permitting process, compared to other states.”
Cellphones in schools
Lawmakers in both chambers of the General Assembly have introduced legislation seeking to restrict cellphone usage in public schools.
Elon’s poll found broad support for this proposal, but some differences in opinion as to how broad it should be.
While 59% of respondents said phones should be banned only during instructional time, 25% said they should be banned for the entire school day. Another 10% of respondents said they opposed any ban on cell phones in schools.
“We have not seen that North Carolinians have wholeheartedly embraced this idea of tech integration in K-12 schools,” Husser said.
There are some generational divides in the responses, though. Respondents who were 45 and older were slightly more likely to support cellphone prohibitions than younger respondents, 15% of whom said they did not support any restrictions on cellphone usage.
Fort Bragg’s name change
The poll also asked North Carolinians their views on the decision to restore Fort Bragg as the name of Fayetteville’s military base after it had been changed to Fort Liberty under the Biden administration to remove the name of a Confederate general.
U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced the change last month, though he said the name would now be in memory of a World War II veteran, Roland L. Bragg, who happened to share the same last name as the Confederate general.
Most poll respondents, 52%, said they supported renaming the base as Fort Bragg, while 19% opposed it. Another 30% responded that they were unsure.
The poll further asked respondents if they preferred that the base be named after the Confederate soldier or the WWII veteran. 39% preferred the former while 31% preferred the latter.
These responses also varied based on party affiliation, with Republicans being far more likely to support the name change than Democrats.
This story was originally published March 27, 2025 at 8:01 AM.
