WASHINGTON — Called a few unwanted and destructive guests Helene And Milton have stormed their way into this year’s presidential election.
The back-to-back hurricanes have scrambled the agendas of Democrat Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump — both of whom spent part of their Thursday answering questions about storm recovery efforts.
The two hurricanes are forcing fundamental questions about who as president could best respond to deadly natural disasters, a once-overlooked issue that has become an increasingly routine part of the job. And just weeks before the November 5 electionthe storms have disrupted the voting mechanism in several key provinces.
Vice President Harris is trying to use this as an opportunity to project leadership by appearing at briefings with President Joe Biden and calling for bipartisan cooperation. Former President Trump is trying to use the moment to attack the government’s competence and question whether it is withholding aid from Republican areas, despite there being no evidence of such behavior.
Adding to the pressure is the need to provide more money for the Small Business Administration and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which would require House Republicans to work with the Democratic administration. Biden said Thursday that lawmakers should address the situation immediately.
“Dealing with back-to-back crises will put FEMA under increased scrutiny, which is why the Biden administration will be under a microscope in the days leading up to the election,” said Timothy Kneeland, a professor at Nazareth University in Rochester, New York. York, who has studied the issue.
“Vice President Harris must empathize with the victims without changing the campaign schedule and provide consistent messaging about the widespread destruction that makes FEMA’s work even more challenging than usual,” Kneeland added.
Trump and Harris have already gone there separately Georgia to assess hurricane damage and pledge support, and Harris has visited North Carolina, forcing the candidates to cancel campaign events elsewhere and spend time that is a precious resource in the final weeks before any election. Both Georgia and North Carolina are political battlegrounds, raising the stakes.
The impact of the hurricane is also clearly visible in the candidates’ campaign events.
On Thursday, the first question Harris received at a Univision town hall in Las Vegas came from a construction worker and undecided voter from Tampa, Florida. Ramiro Gonzalez asked about rumors that the administration hasn’t done enough to support people after Helene and whether people in Milton’s path would have access to aid — a sign that Trump’s message is getting through to some potential voters.
Harris has pointed out the amount of misinformation spread by Republicans, but her longer response revealed the dynamics at play just weeks before the election.
“I must emphasize that this is not the time for people to play politics,” she said.
On the same day, Trump opened his speech to the Detroit Economic Club by praising Republican governors in the affected states and taking aim at the Biden-Harris administration.
“They made those people suffer unjustly,” he said of those affected by Helene in North Carolina.
The storms have also disrupted the voting process in some places. North Carolina The State Board of Elections has passed a resolution to help people in the state’s affected counties vote. Florida will allow some counties more flexibility in distributing mail-in ballots and changing polling places for in-person voting. But a federal judge in Georgia said Thursday that the state does not need to reopen voter registration despite Helene’s disruptions.
The tension has begun to undermine the disaster response, with Biden saying on Wednesday and Thursday that Trump has spread falsehoods that are “un-American.”
As a Democratic nominee, Harris has suddenly found herself a major part of the hurricane response, a role that vice presidents in previous administrations have traditionally not been involved in.
On Thursday, she participated virtually in a Situation Room briefing on Milton while in Nevada for campaign activities. She huddled over response plans and called live to CNN on Wednesday to discuss the administration’s efforts.
During an appearance on Wednesday with Biden to discuss Milton ahead of its landfall, Harris subtly tied the issues back into her campaign policy of halting price increases for food and other products.
“Any company – or any individual – who could use this crisis to exploit people desperate for help through illegal fraud or price gouging – whether at the gas pump, at the airport or at the hotel desk – Please know that we are monitoring these developments. conduct and the situation on the ground will be closely monitored and anyone who takes advantage of consumers will be held accountable,” she said.
Harris warned that Milton “poses extreme danger.” It made landfall in Florida late Wednesday, leaving more than 3 million people without power. But the storm surge never reached the same levels as Helene’s, leading to about 230 fatalities and leaving mountainous parts of North Carolina without access to electricity, cell service and roads for long periods.
Trump and his allies have used the aftermath of Helene to spread misinformation about the administration’s response. Their debunked claims include statements that victims can only receive $750 in aid, as well as false accusations that relief funds have been diverted to immigrants.
The former president said the administration’s response to Helene was worse than the widespread approach of the George W. Bush administration. Hurricane Katrina in 2005which led to almost 1,400 deaths.
“This hurricane has been bad, Kamala Harris has stranded them,” Trump said at a recent rally in Juneau, Wisconsin. “This is the worst response to a storm, catastrophe or hurricane that we have ever seen. Probably worse than Katrina, and that’s hard to beat, right?”
Asked about the Trump campaign’s strategic thinking on emphasizing the hurricane response, campaign press secretary Karoline Leavitt said this reflects a pattern of “failed leadership” from the Biden-Harris administration, which has also included the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan and the security in the southern US. border.
“Kamala has outpaced the Americans and proven her inability to resolve crises at the highest levels,” Leavitt said.
John Gasper, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University who has researched government responses to natural disasters, said storm victims generally want to make sure they get the help they need.
“These disasters are ultimately a good test of the leadership of local, state and federal officials in how they respond,” he said.
But Gasper noted that American politics has become so polarized and that other issues, such as the economy, are shaping the election, so the debate currently generating so much tension between Trump and the Biden-Harris administration may not matter all that much on Election Day .
“On the margins it will matter,” he said. “Will it decide the election? Probably not. There are so many other things.”
___
AP writer Adriana Gomez Licon contributed to this report.