A Liberian man infected with the lethal Ebola virus died at a Dallas hospital last week, becoming the first person to succumb to the illness in the U.S. in the recent outbreak, and two health care workers who cared for him have since tested positive for the disease. An American Airlines flight made an emergency landing in Midland, Texas, after a female passenger began vomiting, raising worries she also had the virus, and an NBC News freelance cameraman began receiving treatment after contracting Ebola while on assignment in Africa.

While the Obama administration announced there will be fever screenings at five U.S. airports, both the government and the American public continue to grapple with the question of how to keep the deadly illness from spreading while avoiding panic. The news that Nina Pham, a 26-year-old nurse who treated Thomas Eric Duncan, the Liberian man who died Oct. 8 at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital, contracted Ebola on American soil worried those in the health care industry and the general public, especially since she had worn protective gear. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said officials would need to rethink the protocols for treating the disease, acknowledging there may have been a "breach" during Duncan's treatment. On Wednesday, officials announced that a second health worker involved in Duncan's care also tested positive for Ebola.

Ebola's death rate, meanwhile, has increased from about 50 to 70 percent, and the World Health Organization says there soon could be up to 10,000 new cases of the disease each week.

Naturally, a public health emergency has led candidates in highly contested 2014 races (as well as future presidential aspirants) to ask the question: How can I make political hay out of all of this? Michigan Republican senatorial candidate Terri Lynn Land used the issue to go after President Barack Obama and her Democratic opponent, Rep. Gary Peters, saying the two “need to lead” to protect the nation from the threat. “We’ve got to figure this out. This is a world health crisis. It has to be addressed,” Land said on the Michigan Public Radio Network, calling for a ban on flights coming from nations where Ebola is a problem. (The Dallas patient did not come directly from Liberia, but took a connecting flight from Brussels.)

Two potential presidential candidates from Texas have delivered dramatically different takes on the issue, with GOP Sen. Ted Cruz urging the Federal Aviation Administration to shut down flights from West Africa. “I’m concerned that the administration is not treating it with the gravity it deserves,” Cruz said. Texas Gov. Rick Perry tried to calm a fearful constituency, saying, “Rest assured that our system is working as it should.”

The issue also came up in a recent Senate debate in North Carolina, with Republican Thom Tillis using the virus to cast Democrats – both his opponent, Sen. Kay Hagan, and Obama – as being ill-equipped to protect America from a slew of potential threats, like Ebola and the rise of the extremist Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria. Hagan, for her part, accused Tillis of “scare tactics” and said a travel ban could be part of “a broad range of options” in handling the matter.

Diana Soliwon for USN&WR

There may not be very many “Ebola voters” out there, experts say. But the threat – coming on top of worries about the Islamic State group, illegal immigration and even the Secret Service’s poor handling of security breaches around the president – plays into a broader theme that the Democrats are poor protectors, notes John Clark, a political science professor at Western Michigan University.

“It feeds into this insecurity,” which includes not just the Middle East and immigration but the still-recovering economy, Clark says. “And that feeds into a narrative that is helpful to both Republicans and outsiders” such as third-party candidates.

On the other hand, says Barbara Trish, a political science professor at Grinnell College in Iowa, Democrats might use the opportunity to show why government matters in people’s lives. “It’s a great case for [saying], ‘The government’s really functional. Stop trashing it,’” Trish says.

How the government responds to the crisis in the coming weeks may well determine the vulnerability of incumbents.

An electron micrograph of the Ebola virus. (CDC) CDC/Getty Images