Hurricane Milton made landfall in Florida on the evening of October 9 with winds of 120 mph, equivalent to a Category 3 storm on the US 5-point hurricane scale. President Joe Biden previously said Milton could be the worst storm to hit Florida in more than a century.

According to analysts, the storm poses many risks, including rising sea levels, which could submerge many coastal areas of Florida, seriously threatening human life and property.

While efforts to combat the storm were being rushed, an equally fierce political battle broke out.

The United States has been hit by two major hurricanes in the past two weeks, hitting the Southeast. In the final weeks of the presidential election, Hurricane Milton, along with Hurricane Helene before it, has become the focus of a wave of partisan division, experts say.

Usually, political shockwaves only arise after the storm has passed. But this time, the war of words began early.

For Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic candidate, the storm is an opportunity for her to demonstrate her empathy for victims and her ability to manage crises, commanding the federal government to respond to the situation.

But any mistakes or failures in federal rescue and relief efforts could be devastating and irreparable for the vice president, with the election so close.

Even if Ms. Harris coordinates the federal response to the storm well, her challenge will not decrease, because former President Donald Trump can still promote a wave of misinformation to imply that she is a failure, according to Stephen Collinson, a veteran commentator from CNN.

This explains why Harris chose to confront him head-on and launch a “preemptive strike” in an interview on October 7, claiming that the former president was spreading misinformation about government assistance to the area devastated by Hurricane Helene.

“Everything is to serve his own purpose, not the people,” she said.

The next day, on ABC ‘s “The View ,” the vice president continued to ramp up the attack, saying the hurricane situation “isn’t a partisan or political issue with some leaders” but she was “not sure about that with others,” referring to former President Trump.

Government officials also reinforced the vice president’s message. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Director Deanne Criswell warned that former President Trump’s statements were making people fear the government would not come to their aid after Hurricane Milton. The White House opened a Reddit account to verify and dispel misinformation.

Meanwhile, President Biden was also under pressure to handle national emergency, maybe the last time in his term.

With his foreign policy legacy overshadowed by unresolved conflicts in the Middle East, President Biden will surely want to avoid another scandal that would overshadow his final days in office and potentially damage his chosen successor, Vice President Harris.

Hurricane season’s political battles are in fact shaped by memories of two past disasters. President George W. Bush’s botched handling of Hurricane Katrina, which struck New Orleans and the Gulf Coast in 2005, helped derail his second term. And President Barack Obama’s effective handling of Superstorm Sandy, which struck the East Coast in 2012, helped him defeat Republican Mitt Romney in that year’s election.

Trump has repeatedly shown that there is no situation he cannot exploit for political gain. He once used Hurricane Helene to portray the Biden-Harris administration as “incompetent and unable to address the basic needs of the American people.”

This is similar to how he accused Vice President Harris of helping to create a national crisis that he claimed was caused by crime and rampant immigration. He repeatedly claimed that illegal immigrants brought “bad genes” to the US, accusing them of “eating the dogs and cats” of Americans, without providing any evidence.

When Hurricane Helene hit, he falsely claimed that President Biden was ignoring Republican-leaning areas affected by the storm. The former president also falsely claimed that Vice President Harris had diverted FEMA disaster response funds to a program to house undocumented immigrants and was therefore unable to help hurricane victims. FEMA has denied Trump’s claim.

Continuing Trump’s series of misinformation, his running mate, Senator JD Vance, also made an inaccurate claim that the federal government would only provide $750 in aid to those who lost their homes due to the storm.

He criticized Biden – Harris for not mobilizing the army faster to approach the severely affected areas in North Carolina after Hurricane Helene.

“After Hurricane Helene made landfall on September 26, Joe Biden remained at his home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. Vice President Kamala Harris was caught up in lavish fundraisers in California, mingling with celebrities,” Vance wrote. “The lack of priority for the hurricane response had real consequences.”

Some of Trump and Vance’s claims have been denied by Republican leaders themselves. But for the former president, whether the information he provides is true or false is irrelevant. It’s all about reaching voters and sowing negative thoughts about his Democratic opponent, Collinson said.

Trump lâu nay vẫn lập luận rằng cả Harris và Biden đều không đủ khả năng làm tổng thống cả về mặt thể chất lẫn tinh thần. Cựu tổng thống phủ nhận những tuyên bố từ đảng Dân chủ về việc ông đang chính trị hóa mùa bão sau khi vội vã đến bang chiến trường Bắc Carolina để đưa ra những tuyên bố cáo buộc chính quyền không đủ năng lực.

“Anything I do, they’re going to say it’s politically motivated,” the former president told Fox host Laura Ingraham on October 7, suggesting Democrats were wrongly blaming him. “If I do anything good, no matter what I do, they’re going to say he did it for politics. But I see them doing that even before me.”

But Trump’s chaotic handling of the hurricanes that hit the United States during his presidency could also come back to haunt him.

Harris’ campaign sought to rekindle that past earlier this week by releasing an ad in which former Trump administration officials Olivia Troye and Kevin Carroll revealed that the former president had tried to cut off disaster relief funds to Democratic-leaning states.

And Vice President Harris has used Hurricane Milton as a springboard to escalate criticism of the former president’s erratic personality, while also advancing the argument that he is an “unserious” person who could pose a major threat if elected.

Harris accused Trump of putting himself “before the needs of others.” “I’m concerned that he really lacks the basic empathy to be able to care about the suffering of others and then understand that the role of a leader is not to tear people down, but to lift them up, especially in times of crisis,” she said in an interview with ABC .

As Hurricane Milton formed in the Gulf of Mexico last week, Harris took part in a series of interviews to convey the message that Trump’s response to the storm showed he lacked the compassion and calmness needed to be president.

“The victims of the storm do not need a leader who makes them more afraid,” she told CNN .

It’s too early to know whether the storms will have a significant impact on the election, but both campaigns have begun weighing the potential for a game-changer in storm-ravaged states.

The Trump campaign is trying to figure out how many potential voters will be affected in North Carolina or Georgia and how they will get to the polls. Campaign staff are particularly concerned about North Carolina, where flooding from Hurricane Helene has submerged many areas where the former president is a strong supporter.

Hurricane Milton also had an immediate impact on Trump. His campaign office in Palm Beach, Florida, is now empty as staff evacuated ahead of the storm, an adviser said.

Mike DuHaime, a Republican political consultant, said the political battle over Hurricane Milton remains a “clear danger” for both candidates. “There are times when the public expects politics to be put aside. This is it,” he said.