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More voters trust Vice President Kamala Harris—not former President Donald Trump—to effectively respond to a natural disaster, according to a new poll.
In a survey released Monday by Data for Progress, Harris was favored 50 percent to 46 percent among likely voters who were asked which major presidential candidate they trusted more to handle “climate and extreme weather disasters.”
The survey was conducted from October 11 to October 13, just a few days after Hurricane Milton made landfall near Siesta Key, Florida, and a little more than two weeks after the Southeast was battered by Hurricane Helene, among the deadliest hurricanes in U.S. history. The poll was based on the response of 1,206 likely voters and has a margin of error of plus/minus 3 percent.
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The back-to-back arrivals of the major storms spurred a new talking point in the 2024 presidential election, with both candidates confronted by questions on handling natural disasters.
Early analysis suggested that Harris’ election chances suffered a dent after the hurricanes made landfall, in part due to misinformation about federal agencies’ disaster response. The deceitful rhetoric has been fueled by Trump and other conservative figures.
Analysis conducted by Impact Social at the start of October found that out of negative online conversations about Harris, 12 percent were related to her handling of Helene. In comparison, among the negative comments aimed at Trump, just 7 percent related to his disaster response.
“Whipped up by the right, independents accused the VP of a lack of leadership, of being more interested in electioneering and fundraising” than areas hit hardest by Helene, Impact Social wrote in a memo attached to its study that was released exclusively to Newsweek.
Trump has pushed claims that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is low on disaster relief funding because the agency diverted money to services for illegal migrants. The White House has adamantly denied those claims. FEMA has said that the money spent by the agency for migrant housing is part of a separate program unrelated to its disaster fund.
On Monday, the former president repeated claims that FEMA “was not doing their job” in areas still recovering from Helene’s impacts.
“They spent money to bring people into our country and they don’t have money to take care of the people from North Carolina and other states,” he added at a campaign stop in the Tar Heel State.
Monday’s survey from Data for Progress found that the majority of Americans (60 percent to 32 percent) hold a favorable opinion of FEMA’s response to Helene and Milton.
A majority of voters also agreed that the U.S. government “should increase funding for FEMA,” with 51 percent of those included in the survey agreeing with the statement. Twenty-eight percent said they believe FEMA funding should be kept the same and 12 percent said they believe agency funding should be reduced.
Newsweek reached out to the Harris and Trump campaigns via email on Monday for comment.