Eye of the Storm: Back-to-back hurricanes threaten to upend Harris-Trump presidential showdown

As the death toll rises and roughly a quarter of a million people remain without power or running water a week and a half after Hurricane Helen tore a path of destruction through the southeast United States, another powerful storm is bearing down on the region.

Hurricane Milton, now an extremely dangerous Category 5 storm, is on course to slam into Florida Wednesday evening.

With four weeks to go until Election Day in November and Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Trump locked in a bitter margin-of-error showdown in the race to succeed President Biden in the White House, and with two of the hardest-hit states from Helene — North Carolina and Georgia — among the seven key battlegrounds that will likely determine the outcome of the 2024 election – the politics of federal disaster relief are once again front and center on the campaign trail.

Trump has been attacking the vice president and her boss over the federal response to Hurricane Helene for well over a week. Harris, on Monday, fired back, accusing Trump of pushing “a lot of mis and disinformation.” 

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The former president has repeatedly charged that Biden and Harris have been incompetant in their handling of rescue and recovery efforts.

“It is going down as the WORST & MOST INCOMPETENTLY MANAGED ‘STORM,’ AT THE FEDERAL LEVEL, EVER SEEN BEFORE,” Trump claimed last week.

On Monday, he argued in a social media post that the administration’s storm response was “the WORST rescue operation in the history of the U.S.”

And Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, charged Monday in a “Fox and Friends” interview that the administration’s efforts were “incompetence of the highest order.”

The Trump campaign, in announcing Vance would hold a town hall Thursday in Greensboro, North Carolina, argued that Harris “completely left North Carolina behind in the wake of devastation post-Hurricane Helene.”

And in a blatant pitch for votes, the former president claimed that “NORTH CAROLINA HAS BEEN VIRTUALLY ABANDONED BY KAMALA!!! DROP HER LIKE SHE DROPPED YOU – VOTE FOR PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP. MAGA2024!”

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Trump’s repeatedly made unsubstantiated claims as he’s targeted Biden and Harris – among them that Republican Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia had been unable to reach Biden when Helene first tore through the Peach State. Kemp later confirmed that he had already been in contact with the president.

Despite the untruths from the former president, he did beat Biden and Harris to the scene, surveying the storm-damaged region two days before they did last week.

The optics put the president and vice president on defense, and they’ve been forced to repeatedly correct the record.

President Joe Biden and Gov. Roy Cooper of North Carolina greet first responders after touring areas impacted by Hurricane Helene, at the ariport in Greenville, S.C., Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024.  (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

The White House has publicized FEMA’s [Federal Emergency Management Agency] efforts in assisting the hard-hit states. Biden made back-to-back trips to the southeast last Wednesday and Thursday, as he stopped in the four hardest hit states, and Harris also made two trips to survey damage.

Huddled with Democratic and Republican politicians from the region last week, Biden emphasized that “in a moment like this, we put politics aside, at least we should put it all aside. We have here — there are no Democrats or Republicans, only Americans — our job is to help as many people as we can, as quickly as we can, and as thoroughly as we can.”

Trump – along with his allies – has repeatedly aimed to tie the storm response to the combustible issue of border security, as he claimed that FEMA funds for the rescue and relief efforts in North Carolina were being diverted to support undocumented migrants.

The Harris campaign, firing back, said that Trump and Vance and their allies have been “pushing debunked lies about Hurricane Helene response.”

A top North Carolina Republican – Sen. Thom Tillis – asked about the charges, said on the Sunday talk shows that “I believe that we have to stay focused on rescue operations, recovery operations, clearing operations, and we don’t need any of these distractions on the ground.”

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris greets people who were impacted by Hurricane Helene in Augusta, Ga., Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024, as Augusta Mayor Garnett Johnson watches at right. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

Harris, on Monday, called Trump’s actions “extraordinarily irresponsible.”

“It’s about him. It’s not about you. And the reality is that FEMA has so many resources that are available to folks who desperately need them now, and resources that are about helping people get back on their feet and rebuild and have places to go,” Harris emphasized.

But longtime Republican strategist David Kochel noted that Trump had been “very aggressive” with his initial quick trip to the storm-damaged region. 

“I think he put a lot of pressure on them to try to do something,” Kochel, a veteran of numerous GOP presidential campaigns, told Fox News. “He’s out there pushing a line that they don’t care, they’re not doing anything, and I think they’re reacting to it.”

Now, with Hurricane Milton bearing down on Florida, the Biden administration highlighted their efforts in a release headlined “Federal Assistance for Hurricane Helene Exceeds $210 Million, FEMA Prepares for Dual Response with Hurricane Milton Strengthening as it Moves Toward Gulf Coast of Florida.”

As Biden declared a state of emergency in Florida on Monday, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida said during a news conference that 5,000 National Guardsmen had been mobilized in his state, with another 3,000 on the way.

“We have gotten what we need from the feds,” DeSantis said. “The president has approved what we asked for….I’m thankful for that.. Everything we’ve asked for from President Biden, he’s approved.”

This is far from the first time that a tropical storm has impacted a presidential race.

Then-President George H.W. Bush took a political hit over FEMA’s disorganized efforts to provide relief in Florida from Hurricane Andrew, which pounded the then-key battleground state weeks before Election Day.

Fast-forward a decade and his son – then-President George W. Bush – likely enjoyed a political bounce in Florida during his 2004 re-election thanks to his aggressive response to Hurricane Charley, which hit in August of that year.

Bush was narrowly re-elected, thanks in large part to carrying the Sunshine State, but his administration’s image in handling storms took a major hit the next year, over the botched response in Louisiana to Hurricane Katrina.

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As he ran for re-election in 2012, then-President Barack Obama’s aggressive response in dealing with Superstorm Sandy -which slammed into the Eastern Seaboard days before the election – likely boosted him to victory.

Trump, in his first year in office, faced criticism as Puerto Rico struggled to recover from a powerful storm. The president was pilloried for throwing paper towels to the crowd as he stopped by a relief center during a storm-related visit to the island.

But the incident – which took place three years before his re-election effort – was vastly overshadowed by his response to the COVID crisis, the worst pandemic to hit the globe in a century.

Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.