Somewhere between the sun's surface and the American power grid lies a vulnerability that no election cycle has fully reckoned with. Solar storms — ancient, indifferent, and statistically inevitable — carry the capacity to overwhelm the transformers and transmission lines that modern life depends upon, with certain regions of the United States facing far greater exposure than others due to the geometry of their infrastructure and the behavior of Earth's magnetic field. Scientists have long understood this risk; the 1859 Carrington Event and a near-miss in 2012 stand as reminders that the quest