Democratic Senate nominee Roy Cooper is taking aim at his Republican opponent, Michael Whatley, for not pushing Washington to send more Hurricane Helene aid to western North Carolina.
Cooper addressed the issue Friday during a campaign stop at the Buncombe County Democratic Party headquarters in Asheville, arguing that the region “desperately needs more federal funding.”
Hurricane Helene funding was noticeably absent from a recent supplemental spending request to Congress in which the White House asked for nearly $88 billion to pay for the Iran war, aid for farmers and a host of other priorities.
Cooper asked why Whatley, a member of President Trump’s FEMA Review Council, hasn’t done more on the issue.
“To have a supplemental appropriations bill proposed by this administration with zero money for Hurricane Helene? That’s awful,” Cooper told reporters. “And I’m concerned that the western North Carolina federal recovery czar, Michael Whatley, who was appointed by this president, is not saying anything about it, has not convinced this administration that Helene recovery needs to be in it.”
The Whatley campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment from BPR. On his campaign website, Whatley touts his role on the FEMA Review Council, saying he has worked “to guarantee that disaster responses are dramatically improved from the failures seen under the Biden’s FEMA and Governor Roy Cooper’s handling of Hurricane Helene.”
“So far, I have worked with the Trump administration to deliver more aid for Hurricane Helene recovery than any other recovery project in the history of North Carolina,” the website states.
In his remarks to reporters, Cooper praised Republican Sen. Ted Budd, who on Thursday vowed to oppose any supplemental funding bill that doesn’t include Helene recovery money.
“I was glad to see Senator Budd and others step up to say, ‘We’ve got to have this funding here,’ because there’s going to be very few chances. The further we get away from the storm, the chances will diminish that western North Carolina will be able to get its fair share.”
Federal aid so far has covered only about 15% of the estimated $60 billion in damage caused by Hurricane Helene in North Carolina.
Gov. Josh Stein traveled to Washington, D.C., earlier this month to urge members of the state’s congressional delegation to support his request for $10 billion in additional recovery money.
A recent Catawba College-YouGov survey shows Cooper, the former governor, leading Whatley by 14 percentage points among likely voters in the Senate race. The seat is one of a handful that could determine control of the U.S. Senate in November.
During Cooper’s campaign swing, dubbed the “Make Stuff Cost Less” tour, he largely focused on economic issues. He also emphasized Whatley’s close ties to Trump, declaring that the Republican is “going to do and say whatever this president tells him to do and say.”
“He’s going around saying we’ve defeated inflation,” Cooper said of Whatley. “Come on! We know we haven’t defeated inflation. He is trying to ingratiate himself every day.”
Fifty-four percent of likely voters in North Carolina — including 67% of independents — disapprove of the president’s job performance, according to the Catawba College-YouGov poll.
Holly McBride, a resident of Weaverville who attended Friday’s event, said she has always been engaged in politics, but “not involved to this level” before. She said she recently accepted a job as a Democratic field coordinator in Durham because “this is an existential time for our democracy.”
“There’s so many things on so many levels. So I’m trying to focus in on, ‘What are the things that most people really care about?’” McBride said. “And I think one is obviously the cost of things. Another is the corruption. The corruption in Washington is on steroids. It’s insane. Especially within the White House. And it has to stop.”
