Eye of the storm: Back-to-back hurricanes threaten to end Harris-Trump presidential showdown

As the death toll rises and about a quarter-million people remain without power or running water a week and a half after Hurricane Helen ripped a path of destruction through the southeastern United States, another powerful storm is ravaging the region.

Hurricane Milton, now an extremely dangerous Category 5 storm, is on track to hit Florida on Wednesday evening.

Four weeks before Election Day in November, Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Trump engaged in a bitter showdown over the margin of error in the race to succeed President Biden in the White House, with two of the hardest hit states From Helene – North Carolina and Georgia – are among the seven key battlegrounds likely to decide the outcome of the 2024 election – the politics of federal disaster relief are once again the focus of the campaign.

For over a week, Trump has been attacking the Vice President and her boss over the federal response to Hurricane Helene. Harris hit back Monday, accusing Trump of spreading “a lot of misinformation and misinformation.”

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Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump speaks outside the Chez What furniture store while visiting Valdosta, Georgia, a city hit by Hurricane Helene, Monday, Sept. 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

The former president has repeatedly accused Biden and Harris of being incompetent in handling the rescue and recovery efforts.

“It will go down in history as the worst and most mismanaged federal 'storm' ever seen,” Trump claimed last week.

On Monday, he argued in a social media post that the government's storm response was “the WORST rescue operation in US history.”

And Trump's vice presidential running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, accused the administration's efforts of “incompetence of the highest degree” in a “Fox and Friends” interview on Monday.

When the Trump campaign announced that Vance would hold a town hall meeting in Greensboro, North Carolina, on Thursday, it argued that Harris “has completely left North Carolina behind after the devastation following Hurricane Helene.”

And in a blatant campaign trail, the former president claimed: “NORTH CAROLINA HAS BEEN VIRTUALLY ABANDONED BY KAMALA!!! DROPP THEM LIKE SHE DROPPED THEM – VOTE FOR PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP. MAGA2024!”

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Trump has repeatedly made baseless claims as he targeted Biden and Harris – including that Republican Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp was unable to reach Biden when Helene first raced through the Peach State. Kemp later confirmed that he had already been in contact with the president.

Despite the former president's falsehoods, he was on the scene before Biden and Harris and surveyed the storm-ravaged region two days before them last week.

The optics put the president and vice president on the defensive, and they were forced to correct the record repeatedly.

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

The White House has announced FEMA's (Federal Emergency Management Agency) efforts to assist the hardest hit states. Biden made two consecutive trips to the Southeast last Wednesday and Thursday, stopping in the four hardest-hit states, and Harris also made two trips to survey damage.

Last week, Biden huddled with Democratic and Republican politicians from the region and stressed: “In a moment like this, we put politics aside, at least we should put everything aside. What we have here – there are no Democrats or Republicans, just Americans – “Our job is to help as many people as possible, as quickly as possible and as comprehensively as possible.”

Trump — along with his allies — has repeatedly tried to link the storm response to the sensitive issue of border security, claiming that FEMA funds for the rescue and relief effort in North Carolina were being diverted to migrants without supporting papers.

The Harris campaign responded by saying Trump and Vance and their allies had “spread exposed lies about the response to Hurricane Helene.”

A senior North Carolina Republican – Senator Thom Tillis – asked about the allegations, saying on Sunday's talk shows: “I believe that we need to continue to focus on rescue operations, recovery operations and clearance operations, and we don't need any of those distractions on.” Floor.”

Democratic presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harris greets people affected by Hurricane Helene in Augusta, Georgia, on Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024, as Augusta Mayor Garnett Johnson looks on, right. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

Harris described Trump's actions on Monday as “extraordinarily irresponsible.”

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

But longtime Republican strategist David Kochel noted that Trump was “very aggressive” in his first short trip to the storm-damaged region.

“I think he put a lot of pressure on them to do something,” Kochel, a veteran of numerous Republican presidential campaigns, told Fox News. “He's out there taking the stance that they don't care, they're not doing anything, and I think they're responding to that.”

Now, as Hurricane Milton barrels toward Florida, the Biden administration is highlighting its efforts in a press release headlined, “Federal assistance for Hurricane Helene tops $210 million, FEMA prepares for dual response as Hurricane Milton heads toward.” Florida Gulf Coast is gaining strength.”

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

“We got what we needed from the government,” DeSantis said. “The President has approved what we asked for… I am grateful for that. Everything we asked of President Biden, he approved.”

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

Then-President George HW Bush suffered a political setback over FEMA's disorganized efforts to provide relief to Florida after Hurricane Andrew, which hit what was then the key battleground state weeks before Election Day.

A decade later, his son – then-President George W. Bush – likely enjoyed a political resurgence in Florida during his re-election in 2004, thanks to his aggressive response to Hurricane Charley, which struck in August of that year.

Bush was narrowly reelected, thanks in large part to the success of the Sunshine State, but his administration's storm-handling image took a major hit the following year due to Louisiana's botched response to Hurricane Katrina.

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When he ran for re-election in 2012, then-President Barack Obama's aggressive response to Superstorm Sandy, which hit the East Coast just days before the election, likely helped him win.

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

But the incident – which occurred three years before his re-election bid – was largely overshadowed by his response to the COVID crisis, the worst pandemic to hit the world in a century.

Get the latest updates on the 2024 election, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital Election Center.