From Trump’s GoFundMe to Harris’s travels, the politics of Helene prove tricky

Rick Scott is one of the most conservative voices in the Senate. He has tussled with Joe Biden overSocial Security and Medicare. A major supporter of Donald Trump, he even traveled to New York during Trump’s criminal trial.

But on Thursday, as Biden touched down in Florida to assess the damage of Hurricane Helene, Scott greeted Biden. And it’s not the only time he’s done so. Last year, after Hurricane Idalia ravaged the state, he did the same — while Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who was running for president at the time, elected not to meet with Biden at all.

In 2018, as Trump was trashing Puerto Rico in the news and delayed aid to the region following Hurricane Maria, Scott, then a governor running for Senate, chartered flights to the island. His outreach to Puerto Ricans likely played a role in him beating longtime incumbent Democratic senator Bill Nelson by a hair.

Disaster relief puts politicians in strange places because it’s one of the few areas where even die-hard conservatives expect government to carry the load. Even in states like Florida, which has not elected a Democratic governor in 30 years, Republican elected officials live and die knowing they cannot screw up hurricane relief infrastructure.

Indeed, one major reason Governors Roy Cooper of North Carolina and Andy Beshear of Kentucky — both Democrats — won re-election in red states was because of their focus on providing relief after hurricanes and tornadoes.

On Wednesday, Kamala Harris visited Georgia to survey the damage wrought by Hurricane Helene. She will head to North Carolina on Friday, after a brief campaign stop in Wisconsin.

Both Georgia and North Carolina are battleground states. And unsurprisingly, good disaster relief can often equal good