As Kamala Harris deals with her own Katrina in North Carolina, Donald Trump has a two-point lead in the state.
The comparisons between former President George W. Bush’s supposed mishandling of Hurricane Katrina and sitting Vice President Kamala Harris’s blatant mishandling of Hurricane Helene are quite startling.
Back in 2005, Bush was criticized for not immediately returning to DC from his ranch in Texas to personally oversee the rescue efforts.
Former U..S President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump delivers remarks to the press in the aftermath of powerful storm Helene at Chez What furniture store in Valdosta, Georgia, September 30, 2024. (CHANDAN KHANNA/AFP via Getty Images)
Bush was also severely criticized for a photo that purported to show him looking over the damage from Air Force One.
Fast-forward 19 years… While Western North Carolina was ravaged by Hurricane Helena, Harris was at a ritzy Los Angeles fundraiser partying with celebs and elites.
As far as bad photo ops, Team Kamala dropped this faker-than-fake beauty on the same day former President Trump was on the ground in Georgia surveying the wreckage, handing out supplies, and talking to Elon Musk about getting Starlink Satellite Systems to areas without internet.
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I live in Western North Carolina in a little town called Boone. Google it. My wife and I are fine, but our town has been devastated and here we are, five days in, and where’s the help? I’m not seeing anything about FEMA trucks in our local paper. Thousands are still without power and water. Worse still, from my house, there are four roads in and out. Both roads into town are blocked. One road out of town is blocked.
The fourth is a back road that’s treacherous enough in normal conditions.
You never know how voters will react to these things, but the Biden-Harris administration is in charge and right now things are awful and there’s no sense as to when things will improve.
Up till now, polling in North Carolina, a crucial swing state in the upcoming presidential election has been tight-tight-tight. On Tuesday, the far-left Washington Post released the first poll out of the state where part of the survey was the post the September 27 flooding.
I should add that the Post is a notoriously left-wing poll.
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Between September 25–29, the Post surveyed 1,001 likely voters and found Trump up two points, 50 to 48 percent.
The RealClearPolitics average poll of North Carolina polls shows Trump up by 0.8 points.
My guess is that the Post poll is still too soon to work as a barometer of how the people of my state will feel about the Biden-Harris administration’s handling of the recovery efforts. But there is plenty of time before the election for North Carolina voters to let it sink in.
John Nolte’s first and last novel, Borrowed Time, is winning five-star raves from everyday readers. You can read an excerpt here and an in-depth review here. Also available in hardcover and on Kindle and Audiobook.