President to speak about response to storm; Trump to hit campaign trail in Georgia after accusing Biden and Harris of turning blind eye to destruction

Good morning, US politics blog readers. After churning across the southern US and causing massive destruction and dozens of deaths in North Carolina, Georgia and elsewhere, Hurricane Helene appears set to collide with the presidential campaign. Donald Trump will speak this afternoon in Valdosta, Georgia about the storm, undoubtedly with an eye on turning the swing state’s voters away from Kamala Harris. The former president has already made the hurricane’s destruction into an attack line on the Democrats, reportedly accusing Joe Biden of “sleeping” as the storm raged. Speaking at a rally in Pennsylvania yesterday he also accused Harris of turning a blind eye to the destruction.

Biden plans to speak from the White House at 10.30am ET about his administration’s response to the storm, while Harris has announced the cancellation of campaign events in Las Vegas today so she can return to Washington DC and be briefed on the storm’s impact at Fema headquarters. She’ll arrive just after 5pm.

Harris’s economic policies are more popular with voters than Trump’s, new polling commissioned by the Guardian finds. The vice-president laid out her plans in a major speech last week.

The vice-presidential debate between JD Vance and Tim Walz is set for tomorrow evening, with both candidates preparing for what is currently the last scheduled debate before the election.

Israel may or may not be on the verge of launching a ground invasion of Lebanon. We have a live blog covering the crisis, and you can read it here.