Wisconsin’s latest disaster-aid announcement came through a Republican candidate rather than the state’s governor: President Donald Trump said he would approve roughly $17.9 million in storm aid after speaking with gubernatorial candidate Tom Tiffany. Gov. Tony Evers said his office had no information beyond Trump’s social media post. The episode, and a separate threat Trump made in North Carolina, has prompted critics to question whether disaster-relief announcements are becoming part of the president’s 2026 midterm campaign messaging.
A Phone Call to the Candidate, Not the Governor
According to Northern News Now, Trump wrote that he was approving $17.9 million for Wisconsin after speaking with Tiffany, who told constituents that “President Trump called to let me know that roughly $18 million in aid for Wisconsin has been approved.” Evers, meanwhile, said “we have zero additional information beyond the content of the president’s post,” according to the same report. Evers had requested the federal disaster declaration in August, after severe storms tore through the state on July 26, including a confirmed EF-3 tornado that struck the Menasha and Appleton areas and hail, wind and power outages that damaged four counties and disrupted local water systems. Wisconsin Emergency Management and FEMA estimated the damage at $13.8 million to public infrastructure and $8.2 million to residential property, per the outlet’s reporting.
Evers accused Trump and Tiffany of playing politics with emergency aid, according to the Associated Press, in reporting carried by WKMG. Tiffany, whom Trump has endorsed, is running against Democratic nominee David Crowley, the AP reported. White House spokesperson Lauren Bis rejected the charge, saying the president’s disaster-relief decisions are not politicized, according to the AP.
A North Carolina Threat the President Called a Joke
At a campaign rally in Gastonia for Senate candidate Michael Whatley, Trump said he would withhold additional Hurricane Helene relief funding from North Carolina if Whatley lost, then said he was kidding, the News & Observer reported. North Carolina was still awaiting billions of dollars in federal recovery funds, according to AP reporting. FEMA has said the federal government provided more than $2 billion to the state for recovery and mitigation projects, the News & Observer reported.
Jennifer Balkcom, a Republican congressional candidate in western North Carolina, said, per WLOS ABC News 13 as cited in the AP’s reporting, that Trump may have been trying to persuade voters to back Whatley. Jon Council, who works for Down Home North Carolina, said Trump’s comments did not show sufficient seriousness about local conditions or taxpayer responsibility, according to the AP’s reporting.
Ohio's Declaration Lands Ahead of a Tight Senate Race
The announcements have occurred alongside unresolved requests and narrower-than-requested approvals elsewhere. In Ohio, Trump approved a disaster declaration for severe August storms before a campaign rally in Vandalia. Gov. Mike DeWine had sought assistance for 23 counties, but the declaration authorized direct assistance to residents in seven; 15 requests from states, tribes and territories remained pending, the AP reported. The rally took place as Republican Sen. Jon Husted faced a tight reelection race against Democrat Sherrod Brown. AP reporting also said Trump had linked disaster-funding announcements to endorsements of Ashley Hinson in Iowa and Andy Barr in Kentucky, and had not answered questions about pending requests before rallies in Oklahoma and Nebraska. Hawaii had two requests pending after hurricanes in August and September.
Advocates and a Former FEMA Spokesperson Push Back
Disaster-recovery advocates say assistance should be based on need, not political support. Sierra Lindsey-Kos, co-founder and co-executive director of Extreme Weather Survivors, said recovery is not partisan and that neighbors help one another without asking how they voted, according to the AP.
Rafael Lemaitre, a former FEMA spokesperson under President Barack Obama, said making disaster relief and votes appear connected has traditionally been out of bounds, and that politicization diminishes disaster-management integrity and erodes public trust, according to the AP’s reporting. Andrew Rumbach, a senior fellow at the Urban Institute who tracks presidential disaster declarations, said politicians have always tried to use disasters to their advantage but described the White House’s recent conduct as unusual and concerning, per the AP’s reporting. Rumbach’s own analysis, which plots every major disaster declaration against a requesting state’s presidential vote margin and the time to a decision, draws on the OpenFEMA API and state election results and excludes COVID-19, tribal declarations and territories from its data set.
FEMA's Own Record Faces Questions
FEMA has said politically motivated disaster decisions do not reflect the agency’s process or mission, according to the AP. The AP also reported that a September FEMA release about nor'easter preparations named 18 Republican members of Congress whose districts agency leadership said it was working closely with, but did not name Democratic members in that release. Separately, North Carolina’s Department of Justice said it won a lawsuit after a federal court ordered FEMA to reinstate the BRIC disaster mitigation program. Under federal rules, a presidential major disaster declaration is requested by the affected state’s governor. In Wisconsin and North Carolina, that formal process has sat alongside campaign-trail announcements delivered through candidates rather than sitting governors.
What Disaster Declarations Cover—and What the Data Shows
A Congressional Research Service report explains that Stafford Act declarations make federal resources available to supplement state and local disaster relief and recovery. The sources cited here establish that a state’s governor requests a major-disaster declaration, but do not detail FEMA’s review steps or any appeal process. North Carolina’s Department of Commerce says its HUD Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery funding is intended to address long-term needs left after other assistance has been exhausted—a separate recovery stream from FEMA declaration aid. For broader context, Politico, citing an E&E News review, reported that Trump approved 23 percent of disaster-aid requests from states with a Democratic governor and two Democratic senators, compared with 89 percent from states with a Republican governor and two Republican senators. Those figures describe different approval rates; they do not establish the reason for any individual decision or, on their own, show that a decision was tied to electoral support.
