WASHINGTON (AP) — Three up-to-date trials — a devastating hurricane, a widening conflict in the Middle East and a longshoremen’s strike that threatens the U.S. economy — are looming in the final weeks of the presidential campaign and could lend a hand sway public sentiment over the decision of voters between Democrat Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump.
How events unfold — and how the candidates respond — could be crucial as they fight for votes in battleground states.
Incumbent President Joe Biden is still the steward of the U.S. economy and foreign policy at this turbulent moment and may bear ultimate responsibility for its outcome. But how Harris and Trump approach the three different issues could have far-reaching implications for how Americans perceive their two decisions in November.
“Unfortunately, events like this will happen, and this is where the leadership of a president shows itself,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters on Tuesday. “I think this should send a message to Americans: It’s important. It matters who sits behind the Resolute Desk.”
Harris, with Biden’s lend a hand, is trying to maintain steady tranquil while a barrage of hard issues arise.
She and Biden alternated on Tuesday between leading the recovery and rescue effort after Hurricane Helene and huddling with aides in the White House situation room to watch the U.S. defend Israel against a massive attack by Iran in retaliation for the assassination of Tehran-backed leaders helped Lebanese Hezbollah.
Meanwhile, they were in close contact with economic advisers as longshore workers hit the picket lines Tuesday, a strike stretching from ports in Maine to Texas that threatens to cripple supply chains and lead to shortages and higher prices if it lasts more than a year lasts a few weeks.
Trump, for his part, lashed out at Harris as if he was in over her head, while claiming that such mass destruction of problems never occurred under his watch.
“We’ve talked about World War III, and I don’t want to make any predictions,” Trump said at a campaign rally in Wisconsin. “The whole world laughs at us. This is why Israel was recently attacked. Because they no longer respect our country.”
Yet voters cast Trump aside four years ago largely because of how they viewed his handling of the swirling economic, social and health challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Biden appeared to acknowledge growing frustration over the federal response to the massive storm in comments to reporters before Tuesday’s meeting with aides to discuss the ongoing response to the hurricane.
“I am in frequent contact with the governors and other leaders in the affected areas, and we must jump-start this recovery process,” Biden said. He will travel to the Carolinas on Wednesday to take a closer look at the hurricane’s devastation. He is also expected to visit hurricane-hit areas in Georgia and Florida later this week. “People are scared to death. People wonder if they’re going to make it.”
Harris, meanwhile, heads to Georgia on Wednesday and North Carolina in the coming days to do the same.
Tuesday’s vice presidential debate offered a glimpse of how the two campaigns responded to up-to-date developments to reinforce their own messages and sharpen their attacks on their rivals. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz promised “stable leadership” under Harris, while Ohio Sen. JD Vance promised a return to “peace through strength” if Trump returns to the White House.
Biden has stayed away from the campaign trail since announcing in July that he was ending his re-election effort amid withering public approval ratings.
His conspicuous absence underscores that Democrats view him as a liability rather than an asset in defending Harris, said Christopher Borick, director of the Muhlenberg College Institute of Public Opinion in Pennsylvania.
But how well Biden handles the three most recent emergencies could have a large impact on how undecided voters perceive Harris in these final days.
“President Biden cannot help Kamala Harris,” Borick said. “But in a campaign where you’re turning over every stone in some states to win over that undecided voter, how he handles these crises in the next few weeks could have an impact.”
The Harris Campaign recognizes the risks it faces when multiple crises converge simultaneously, especially given their diverse and unpredictable nature. A prolonged strike, botched disaster relief or a further expansion of the Middle East conflict could raise doubts about Biden’s leadership and thus also that of his deputy.
At the same time, Harris campaign aides believe this unsafe moment presents an opportunity to make clear to voters who is at stake and the seriousness with which they are approaching it, according to campaign aides who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.
In a speech in Waunakee, Wisconsin, and in social media posts on Tuesday, the former president expressed a mix of prayer and concern for those affected by Helene, chided Harris over the longshoremen’s strike and made passing remarks about the occupation of Stanley Kubrick’s film “Full Metal Jacket.”
“The situation should never have gotten to this point, and if I had been president it would not have happened,” Trump said in a statement about the strike.
Harris aides made it a point to have the vice president make brief remarks about the Iranian attack on Tuesday between recording interviews for her campaign to portray her as ready to take charge.
In American presidential politics, late-night unrest is a regular feature, sometimes in the form of a scandal, sometimes with the incumbent’s hope of showing that he or his preferred successor would be tranquil in an uncertain time.
George W. Bush pushed a rescue package through Congress to stabilize a faltering financial system by creating the Troubled Asset Relief Program, despite fears that the economy was on the verge of collapse. Overall economic conditions did not lend a hand Republican John McCain in the race, which he lost to Barack Obama.
Jimmy Carter’s 1980 re-election campaign was crippled by the Iran hostage crisis. On January 20, 1981, shortly after the inauguration of his successor Ronald Reagan, 52 hostages were released.
Lyndon Johnson announced a halt to bombings in North Vietnam just days before the 1968 election, a move he hoped would lead the conflict to a peace resolution. But the South Vietnamese indicated they would not negotiate, and Johnson’s vice president Hubert Humphrey narrowly lost to Republican Richard Nixon.
“Incumbents’ efforts to help themselves or their party’s candidates with ‘October Surprises’ go back a long way,” said Edward Frantz, a historian at the University of Indianapolis. “In this current climate, I’m not sure how many voters can be persuaded by a candidate who tries to show competence this late in the game.”
___
Beaumont reported from Des Moines, Iowa. AP writer Josh Boak contributed to this report.
