JD Vance has called on the Biden–Harris administration to get “its act together” in a scathing critique of the government’s disaster management as Hurricane Milton barrels towards Florida.
The Ohio Senator and Republican vice presidential nominee said that the incumbents’ handling of recent natural disasters was worse than the Obama administration, and had resulted in undue suffering for the storm-hit communities across the Southeast. With only 26 days left in the close-knit presidential race, Vice President Kamala Harris’s response to Hurricane Helene, the deadliest since Katrina, could prove decisive.
“The Biden-Harris response to Hurricane Helene, the deadliest storm since Katrina, has the people of the Southeast and especially Appalachia paying an extraordinary price for the administration’s incompetence,” Vance wrote in a Tuesday column for The Wall Street Journal.
Republican vice presidential nominee, Senator JD Vance, at Eastern Market, Tuesday, October 8, 2024, in Detroit. On Tuesday, Vance criticized the Biden-Harris Administration’s “incompetent” response to Hurricane Helene.
Paul Sancya/AP Photo
Vance cited reports that the Democratic presidential nominee had skipped disaster preparedness briefings, which he called “a staple of the Trump Administration’s disaster-response planning.”
He mentioned the delayed deployment of troops by the Defense Department to the affected areas, which he said was damning for a disaster response in which “every second counts.”
“A competent leader would have ordered those men and women into motion earlier, bureaucracy be damned,” Vance wrote. “Ms. Harris and Mr. Biden treated the situation like a public-relations disaster instead of a real one.”
“Even the Obama administration was better at deploying assets in disaster zones,” he added, praising the Democratic former president’s quick response to the 2010 Haiti earthquake.
Echoing comments made by former President Donald Trump last week, Vance highlighted concerns over the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s ability to address this hurricane season, calling the agency another “victim of misplaced Biden-Harris political priorities.”
“Under Ms. Harris and Mr. Biden, FEMA has funneled millions of dollars to nongovernmental organizations whose stated goal is facilitating mass migration into the U.S.,” Vance said, referring to FEMA-administered programs to provide food and sheltering services for migrant arrivals into the country.
Roxanne Brooks mounts an American flag to a stack of cinderblocks outside her friend’s destroyed mobile home in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene flooding on October 6, 2024, in Swannanoa, North Carolina. Many have called Hurricane Helene Kamala Harris’s “October surprise.”
Mario Tama/Getty Images
The dual effects of Hurricanes Helene and Milton have already been cited by many outlets as Harris’s “October Surprise,” a high-profile event that could impact the outcome of a November election.
Helene hit two of this race’s critical swing states—North Carolina and Georgia—where polling shows former President Donald Trump and VP Harris battling it out for only a few thousand votes.
According to the latest FiveThirtyEight polling averages for Georgia, Trump has extended his lead over Harris by 0.2 points since Helene made landfall, now holding the state 48.4 percent to the vice president’s 47.3.
In North Carolina, which suffered some of the storm’s worst impacts, Trump’s lead has grown from 0.1 to 0.9 points over the same period.
The extent of damage across the Southeast could also directly affect citizens’ ability to vote, as many election offices closed following the storm and the safety of travel to polling locations remains uncertain. If not addressed swiftly, this could potentially disenfranchise large segments of the electorate.
Harris’s response to the September hurricane, as well as the one imminently making landfall in Florida, may also have nationwide impacts if voters share Vance’s assessment of her response.
A YouGov poll published Tuesday found that 42 percent of the 4,450 U.S. adults surveyed trusted Trump to do a better job than his counterpart (40 percent) in handling a natural disaster.
As this particular comparison will remain relevant at least until Hurricane Milton has dissipated, it could be a decisive factor in this year’s election.
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