It takes a pretty major event to take a presidential candidate away from the campaign trail roughly a month before the election. A hurricane as brutal as last week's Helene is one of them. It not only changed travel schedules but may redefine the campaign – at least in the swing states of Georgia and North Carolina, where it cut a devastating path.
Vice President Kamala Harris cut short a trip out West to return to Washington for a Federal Emergency Management Agency briefing on Tuesday and Republican former President Donald Trump made an early stop in Georgia, where he falsely accused President Joe Biden of not responding to state governors.
That got under the skin of Biden, who called Trump a liar from the Oval Office. The Democratic president visited North Carolina on Wednesday, while Harris went to Georgia, where she handed out food and took selfies with community members. It was an official trip -- VP hat on, candidate hat off -- but Georgia's swing state status means those selfies might help bring in a few votes, too.
Both Trump and Harris will travel to North Carolina in coming days, where election officials face a daunting task of collecting votes with residents displaced and towns and roads destroyed by the storm. As the region begins a long road to recovery, the federal government's response may be a strength or a liability for Harris' campaign.
Meanwhile, there are other storms brewing in Georgia. Lawyers for the Democratic Party urged a judge on Tuesday to undo changes made by a Republican-controlled board to election rules they said could undermine trust in the election.
A different kind of storm has been brewing overseas, too, with the crisis in the Middle East escalating. The topic opened the Tuesday vice presidential debate between Republican Senator JD Vance, who showed he could be a 'MAGA smoothie', and Democrat Tim Walz, who stumbled on a China fact check. The lawmaker from Ohio and the governor of Minnesota duked it out politely; voters lauded them for their "Midwest nice" approach, but Vance drew criticism for refusing to say that Trump lost the election in 2020.
More storms are ahead as the campaigns hurdle toward Nov. 5. U.S. prosecutors released fresh information about Trump's attempts to overturn the 2020 results, and both sides are readying their lawyers for post-Election Day battles, with Republicans laying the groundwork for challenges nationwide.
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