WASHINGTON, D.C.: President Barack Obama planned to tour superstorm Sandy’s debris field and Mitt Romney plotted a return to campaigning on Tuesday (Wednesday in Manila), as high-stakes politics stirred back to life a week from election day.

During an unprecedented 24-hour truce so close to a US presidential vote, the campaigns assessed the storm aftermath and how to squeeze the best use from fast dwindling days left in a race either man could still win.

The storm—which killed at least 43 people in the United States and Canada, swamped homes on the East Coast and sent floodwaters gushing through lower Manhattan—muffled campaign trail rhetoric and jumbled political battle lines.

Obama was in presidential mode on Tuesday (local time), firing off orders to government emergency chiefs, telling victims that America found their plight “heartbreaking” and affecting not to notice the looming November 6 poll.

Romney meanwhile concluded that in such a tight race, he could not afford another day watching Obama dominate the headlines, announcing plans for a three-event tour of tightening battleground Florida, which he must win.

Still, Obama will still control the media narrative as he picks through wreckage and consoles storm victims alongside a key Republican, as Romney plays the grubbier game of campaign politics in sunny Florida.

Obama took full advantage of the tools of the presidency as he projected a sense of authority and organization, marshalling the federal government emergency effort and empathizing with millions in the storm’s path.

Obama’s response to the storm, which roared ashore as a hurricane, could help his approval ratings, but both sides believe there are few undecided voters left, so it was unclear whether it would actually shift votes.

While the US media establishment is based on the East Coast and is fixated on the storm, swing states like Ohio, Iowa, Colorado, Florida, Nevada, and even Virginia where the election will be won and lost, escaped Sandy’s worst wrath.

But Romney will still face a test of tone in Florida.

Romney has already been accused of muscling in on tragedy for political gain—over the attack on the US consulate in Benghazi last month—and so cannot afford missteps seen as motivated by politics.

Romney also faced new scrutiny after a comment in a 2011 Republican primary debate that he would funnel money from the Federal Emergency Management Agency back to the states and the private sector.

However, Romney’s campaign has made clear that he now has no plans to abolish the disaster agency if he is elected president.

The agency was vilified following the botched handling of hurricane Katrina in 2005 by then president George W. Bush, but has since been overhauled by Obama and has run smoothly in subsequent emergencies.

With only five days of campaigning left before he asks voters for a second term, Obama will be expected to turn his focus back to politics on Thursday (Friday in Manila), though no announcements have yet been made by his campaign.

Electioneering did take place at a lower level on Tuesday.

Former president Bill Clinton was in Colorado and Minnesota stumping for Obama as part of a tour of key electoral territory, and early voting was continuing in states unaffected by the storm.