A pair of unwelcome and destructive guests, Helene and Milton, have made a dramatic entrance into this year's presidential election.
These back-to-back hurricanes have thrown the schedules of Democrat Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump into disarray, forcing both to dedicate part of their Thursdays to addressing storm recovery efforts.
The storms raise critical questions about presidential responsiveness to deadly natural disasters, a once-overlooked issue now central to the job. With just weeks remaining before the Nov. 5 elections, the hurricanes have also disrupted voting mechanics in several key counties.
Vice President Harris aims to seize this moment to demonstrate leadership, appearing alongside President Joe Biden at briefings and advocating for bipartisan cooperation.
Meanwhile, former President Trump is using the opportunity to criticize the administration's competence, alleging that it is withholding aid from Republican areas, despite a lack of evidence.
Adding to the urgency is the need for additional funding for the Small Business Administration and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which will require House Republicans to collaborate with the Democratic administration. On Thursday, Biden urged swift action to address the situation.
"Dealing with back-to-back crises will put FEMA under more scrutiny, and therefore, 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, who has studied the issue.
"Vice President Harris must empathize with the victims without altering the campaign schedule and provide consistent messaging on the widespread devastation that makes FEMA's work even more challenging than normal," Kneeland added.
Already, Trump and Harris have separately traveled to Georgia to assess hurricane damage and pledge support, and Harris has visited North Carolina, requiring the candidates to cancel campaign events elsewhere and use up time that is a precious resource in the final weeks before the election. Both Georgia and North Carolina are political battlegrounds, raising the stakes.
The hurricane fallout is evident in the candidates' campaign events as well.
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 reports that the administration has not done enough to support people after Helene and whether those in Milton's path would have access to aid – a sign that Trump's messaging is breaking through with some potential voters.
Harris has called out the level of misinformation being circulated by Republicans, but her fuller answer revealed the dynamics at play just a few weeks before the election.
"I have to stress that this is not a time for people to play politics," she said.
On the same day, Trump opened his speech at the Detroit Economic Club by praising Republican governors in the affected states and criticizing the Biden-Harris administration.
"They've let those people suffer unjustly," he said about those affected by Helene in North Carolina.
The storms have also scrambled the voting process in some areas. North Carolina's State Board of Elections has passed a resolution to help people in the state's affected counties vote. Florida will allow some counties greater flexibility in distributing mail-in ballots and changing polling sites for in-person voting. However, a federal judge in Georgia said Thursday that the state doesn't need to reopen voter registration despite disruptions caused by Helene.
Tension has begun to override the disaster response, with Biden on Wednesday and Thursday saying that Trump has spread falsehoods that are "un-American."
As the Democratic candidate, Harris has suddenly become a major part of the response to the hurricanes, a role that traditionally has not involved vice presidents in prior administrations.
On Thursday, she participated virtually in a Situation Room briefing on Milton while in Nevada for campaign activities. She has also huddled in meetings about response plans and, on Wednesday, phoned into CNN live to discuss the administration's efforts.
At a Wednesday appearance with Biden to discuss Milton ahead of its landfall, Harris subtly tied the issues back to her campaign policies aimed at stopping price gouging on food and other products.
"To any company or individual that might use this crisis to exploit people who are desperate for help through illegal fraud or price gouging–whether it be at the gas pump, the airport, or the hotel counter–know that we are monitoring these behaviors and the situation on the ground very closely, and anyone taking 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 without power. However, the storm surge did not reach the same levels as Helene, which led to roughly 230 fatalities and, for a prolonged period, left mountainous parts of North Carolina without access to electricity, cell service, and roadways.
Trump and his allies have seized on 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 charges that emergency response funds were diverted to immigrants.
The former president said the administration's response to Helene was worse than the George W. Bush administration's widely criticized handling of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, which led to nearly 1,400 deaths.
"This hurricane has been a bad one; Kamala Harris has left them stranded," Trump said at a recent rally in Juneau, Wisconsin. "This is the worst response to a storm or a catastrophe or a hurricane that we've 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 it reflects a pattern of "failed leadership" by the Biden-Harris administration that also includes the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan and security at the U.S. southern border.
"Kamala has left Americans behind and proven she is not equipped to solve crises at the highest level," Leavitt said.
John Gasper, a Carnegie Mellon University professor who has researched government responses to natural disasters, said storm victims generally want to ensure that they get the aid they need.
"These disasters essentially end up being good tests of leadership for local, state, and federal officials in how they respond," he said.
But Gasper noted that U.S. politics have become so polarized and other issues, such as the economy, are shaping the election that the current debate generating so much heat between Trump and the Biden-Harris administration might not matter much on Election Day.
"On the margin, it will matter," he said. "Will it define the election? Probably not. There are so many other things out there."
