Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris is heading to North Carolina on Saturday as the state recovers from Hurricane Helene, arriving there one day after a visit by Republican Donald Trump, who is spreading false claims about the federal response to the disaster.
Earlier in the week, Harris was in Georgia, where she helped distribute meals, toured the damage and consoled families hard-hit by the storm. President Joe Biden, too, visited the disaster zone. During stops over two days in the Carolinas, Florida and Georgia, Biden surveyed the damage and met with farmers whose crops have been destroyed.
The two have been vocal and visible about the government's willingness to help, and the administration's efforts so far include covering costs for all of the rescue and recovery efforts across the Southeast for several months as states struggle under the weight of the mass damage.
In a letter late Friday to congressional leaders, Biden wrote that while the Federal Emergency Management Agency's Disaster Relief Fund "has the resources it requires right now to meet immediate needs, the fund does face a shortfall at the end of the year." He also called on lawmakers to act quickly to restore funding to the Small Business Administration's disaster loan program.
More than 200 people have died. It's the worst storm to hit the U.S. mainland since Katrina in 2005, and scientists have warned such storms will only worsen in the face of climate change.
But in this overheated election year, even natural disasters have become deeply politicized as the candidates crisscross the disaster area and in some cases visit the same venues to win over voters in battleground states.
Trump has falsely claimed the Biden administration isn't doing enough to help impacted people in Republican areas and has harshly criticized the response. He has, in Helene's aftermath, espoused falsehoods about climate change, calling it "one of the great scams of all time."
During a stop in Fayetteville, North Carolina on Thursday, Trump renewed his complaints about the federal response and cited "lousy treatment to North Carolina in particular." In fact, the state's Democratic governor, Roy Cooper, said this week the state has already seen more than 50,000 people be registered for FEMA assistance, and about $6 billion has been paid out.
Biden, meanwhile, has suggested the Republican House speaker is withholding critical disaster funding.
Harris' visits, meanwhile, present an additional political test in the midst of a humanitarian crisis. She's trying to step into a role for which Biden is well known — showing the empathy that Americans expect in times of tragedy — in the closing stretch of her White House campaign.
Until this week, she had not visited the scene of a humanitarian crisis as vice president — that duty was reserved for Biden, who has frequently been called on to survey damage and console victims after tornadoes, wildfires, tropical storms and more.
Harris said this week that she wanted to "personally take a look at the devastation, which is extraordinary." She expressed admiration for how "people are coming together. People are helping perfect strangers."
She said that shows "the vast majority of us have so much more in common than what separates us," an echo of a line she frequently uses on the campaign trail.
"We are here for the long haul," she said.
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Associated Press writers Makiya Seminera in Boone, North Carolina, and Meg Kinnard in Fayetteville, North Carolina, contributed.
