This is a multipart series on the different ways the 2024 Presidential Election is likely to affect Texas.
In recent history, Texas has been ground zero for an unprecedented number of destructive weather events. The state now sees more hurricanes than any other except for Florida. Earlier this year, Houston was devastated by two storms that left millions without power for nearly a week.
When disasters occur, Texas inevitably has to lean on federal aid and policy. The 2024 Presidential Election is a rare opportunity to compare candidates with lots of data on this specific subject. Donald Trump is a former president who was in office during Hurricane Harvey, and Kamala Harris is a sitting vice president who has run point on several initiatives related to disasters.
Both Trump and Harris’s boss, President Joe Biden, have been timely in disaster declarations following hurricanes. Trump toured the wreckage after Harvey, and Harris visited following Beryl. Both trips accompanied promises for relief. Trump pledged $4 billion in new levees to control flooding. The Biden Administration added another $1 billion, though those projects are obviously not completed yet.
At first glance, it might look like Trump has been better than Harris for the state. After all, four is greater than one. However, environmentalists and immigration advocates have accused Trump of using the levees as secret border walls. Whether the levees would help control flooding is an open question, while opponents say they are dangerous barriers to animals and humans.
By contrast, Biden and Harris’s actions in Texas have been targeted and local. Under the Justice40 initiative, millions in federal grants and dollars created by the Inflation Reduction Act have flowed into marginalized communities for improvements related to flooding and disaster relief. These include places like Northeast Houston, which floods constantly and is often the last area where power is restored.
Justice40 works with local advocacy and community groups to direct funds where they are needed. This includes drainage projects and building resiliency hubs to serve as safety and supply depots during disasters.
Trump has also been cited by climate groups for poor overall disaster response. He left key positions in FEMA open well into his term, hampering the organizational structures ability to respond. His handling of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico is widely considered incompetent, with the image of him tossing paper towel rolls to residents becoming a meme. Perhaps Trump’s affection for Texas Republican leadership would spare the state such a repeat performance, but perhaps not.
There were some flubs in the response to Hurricane Beryl, too. The Biden Administration claims that the formal disaster declaration was held up by a lack of response from Governor Greg Abbott, who was out of the country, or acting governor Dan Patrick. Both Abbott and Patrick deny this.
Finally, disaster relief cannot be discussed without bringing up climate change. There is an overwhelming scientific consensus that man-made climate change is at least partially responsible for the increase in number and severity of Atlantic cyclones.
Harris has a long history of supporting the government addressing climate change through green energy initiatives, regulating fossil fuel companies, and other measures. While she has backed away from stances such as universal opposition to fracking, she has mostly endorsed the massive environmental investments of the Biden Administration.
Trump has vowed to walk back all of the investments and is on record calling climate change a hoax. That said, Trump did oversee some clean energy progress, such as the Energy Act of 2020.
Under Trump, disaster mitigation for Texas has been a moderate success, while the former president dramatically failed handling storms outside of the state or fully staffing the departments essential to coordinating relief. The United States is unlikely to see any efforts to curtail the root cause of the recent increase in storms, and it’s possible public works projects will be anti-immigration efforts in disguise.
Harris was a top lieutenant in Justice40, which has brought real change to individual communities that are most affected by disasters. The administration has generally responded quickly and well to storms, though tensions between an openly antagonistic Republican state government may have delayed some efforts. Meanwhile, Biden and Harris oversaw the largest investment in combating climate change in the country’s history.
The last point is possibly the best case. Democrats are keen to flip Texas, Republicans to hold her, so both can be counted on to jump at the chance to lend a hand. Harris, though, is looking to a future where this rise in storm devastation is turned back. It’s a generational perspective that Trump clearly does not share based on past actions or current sentiments.
