How hurricane season is affecting the way Americans follow the Trump-Harris race

With the election less than a month away, the public’s attention has shifted to the candidates’ responses to hurricane season, according to The Breakthrough, a CNN polling project that tracks what average Americans are actually hearing, reading and seeing about the presidential nominees throughout the campaign. Former President Donald Trump’s campaign also faced renewed focus on his legal troubles in the wake of a new filing by federal prosecutors, the survey finds.

With the election less than a month away, the public’s attention has shifted to the candidates’ responses to hurricane season, according to The Breakthrough, a CNN polling project that tracks what average Americans are actually hearing, reading and seeing about the presidential nominees throughout the campaign. Former President Donald Trump’s campaign also faced renewed focus on his legal troubles in the wake of a new filing by federal prosecutors, the survey finds. In the wake of Hurricane Helene, which has killed more than 230 people across the southeastern United States, “hurricane” was the word most frequently mentioned when respondents were asked what they’d heard about Trump. It was the second-most frequent word mentioned when they were asked about Vice President Kamala Harris, second only to “campaign.” The poll, conducted by SSRS and Verasight on behalf of a research team from CNN, Georgetown University and the University of Michigan, was fielded from October 4-7, before Hurricane Milton made landfall in Florida on Wednesday night. Democrats and Republicans were about equally likely to mention the hurricane when talking about Harris – although their perspectives on her response often differed sharply. Harris “was working with FEMA on providing assistance and recovery for the areas affected by Hurricane Helene,” one Democratic respondent wrote, while another credited her with having done “a great job of consoling hurricane victims in Georgia.” By contrast, a Republican respondent wrote about hearing that Harris “is only paying $750 to those whose homes are being devastated in the hurricanes, yet sending billions upon billions of dollars to Ukraine and Israel.” The $750 is an apparent reference to a payment program at the Federal Emergency Management Agency that has been mischaracterized by Trump and others as the only assistance FEMA is providing. Republicans were far likelier than Democrats to mention the hurricane in conjunction with Trump. When Democrats were asked what they’d recently heard about the GOP presidential nominee, they were more likely than Republicans to mention his response to the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol, or simply use the word “lie.”