The Politics of Disasters

Throughout the first 200-plus days of Donald Trump’s presidency, it’s been common for analysts to say he is struggling through sub-40% approval ratings despite not having to reckon with a major non-scandal crisis. Whether that was true before last weekend is debatable — do North Korea’s provocations count? — but it’s almost certainly not true now after Hurricane Harvey struck Houston and southeast Texas. …

How the public judges Trump over the government response to Harvey, and whether it will be a key moment in his presidency, remains to be seen. …

For better or for worse, the obvious point of comparison is the catastrophic aftermath of Katrina in 2005, a disaster whose political impact merits further examination. That storm, the costliest natural disaster in U.S. history, made its second landfall in Louisiana on Aug. 29, 2005, which caused numerous breaches in New Orleans’ levee system and flooded most of the city. Bush and his administration eventually came under fire for their response to the crisis, as did state and local officials in Louisiana.

But how much did the Katrina fiasco hurt Bush in the eyes of Americans? CONT.

Kyle Kondik & Geoffrey Skelley, Sabato’s Crystal Ball