Deadly flooding has cut off power and water in large swaths of the Southeast, and storm damage could hamper voting ahead of the election. A longshoremen strike briefly shut down ports along the East and Gulf Coasts, leading Democrats to panic. Bombs and assassinations have put the Middle East on the brink of a regional war. A judge unsealed a document outlining more details of the Jan. 6 assault.<\/p>\n
With just over four weeks before Election Day, the country and the world have been consumed by chaos in ways that inject fresh volatility into a campaign season that has been filled with it, prompting both sides to seek advantage.<\/p>\n
For nearly as long as presidential elections have been held, campaigns have lived in fear \u2014 or hope \u2014 of late developments that might alter the outcome. The term \u201cOctober surprise\u201d was coined in 1980 by a Ronald Reagan campaign operative, who warned that President Jimmy Carter would orchestrate a last-minute release of hostages in Iran to help him win the election. (The hostages were not released until after the election and Carter lost, but the warning was a strategic way to dampen the effect of the news if it did occur.)<\/p>\n
In 2012, Hurricane Sandy devastated the East Coast, which limited campaigning in Virginia and New Hampshire and allowed Barack Obama to showcase the powers of the presidency and an image of bipartisanship with by hugging then-Gov. Chris Christie (R-N.J.), a moment Christie struggled to live down within his party.<\/p>\n
In 2016, Republican Donald Trump\u2019s campaign went into a tailspin after The Washington Post published a tape in which he bragged about sexually assaulting women, though he managed to recover, to the surprise of many on both sides. That same year, Democrat Hillary Clinton\u2019s campaign was hampered by FBI Director James B. Comey\u2019s announcement, 11 days before the election, that he was reopening an investigation into her use of a private email server. (The relatively quick announcement that investigation was being closed again did little to soften the impact.)<\/p>\n
In the final weeks of the 2020 campaign, Trump tested positive for the coronavirus, hospitalizing him for several days and highlighting his struggle to protect the nation from the pandemic. On the Democratic side, the New York Post reported in the campaign\u2019s final days on embarrassing material that purportedly came from the laptop of then-candidate Joe Biden\u2019s son Hunter.<\/p>\n
In this campaign, the unexpected events to date have largely been outside of the candidates\u2019 control \u2014 at least since the bombshell of Biden\u2019s exit from the race July 27. But how they respond, grapple with, or benefit from the developments could have far-reaching implications.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re dealing with imponderables here,\u201d said Republican strategist Karl Rove. \u201cWe saw this happen in how President Obama handled Hurricane Sandy. People thought he was empathetic and was on the spot. It allowed him to be seen as a strong, effective leader. Given that the race is so close, public reaction in parts of seven battleground states could have real consequences for the outcome of the election.\u201d<\/p>\n
The extensive flooding, rapidly spreading Mideast war and brief if perilous longshoremen\u2019s strike have already affected the campaigns, disrupting schedules and shifting strategy. Harris had planned a bus tour in central Pennsylvania on Wednesday, but traveled to Georgia instead to witness and speak about the storm damage. The vice-presidential candidates, who had focused largely on domestic issues, opened their debate Tuesday by facing questions about Iran\u2019s ballistic missile attack on Israel.<\/p>\n
Even more recently, the Harris campaign has scrambled, attempting to showcase her ability to handle a crisis as Trump contends the administration has responded poorly to the hurricane\u2019s damage.<\/p>\n
On Monday, Harris cut short a Western swing to return to Washington, where she spoke at the headquarters of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. She was in the Situation Room for several hours on Tuesday, aides said, monitoring Iran\u2019s strikes on Israel, and she traveled Wednesday to Augusta, Ga., to meet with storm victims.<\/p>\n
The vice president has had the days of appearing aboard Air Force Two \u2014 coffee cup and briefing materials in front of her \u2014 and walking along storm-damaged areas clad in a jacket with the vice-presidential seal. Biden, asked on Friday how he thinks she is handling the chaotic developments, depicted Harris as a full partner.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m in constant contact with her,\u201d Biden told reporters at the White House. \u201cWe\u2019re singing from the same song sheet. She helped pass all the laws that are being employed now. She\u2019s a major player in everything we\u2019ve done.\u201d<\/p>\n
But her campaign also appears to recognize the risk that she could take some blame even for events largely out of her control, particularly when facing an opponent with a history of capitalizing on chaos.<\/p>\n
Some small-town officials say they have not seen government help, and critics have questioned why so many people are still stranded. Conservatives have complained that immigrants are being treated better than flood victims. Trump appeared for the second time in Georgia on Friday with Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, a political adversary with whom he recently made an uneasy truce.<\/p>\n
In response, Harris\u2019s team has highlighted that Republican governors are praising the administration\u2019s performance. Gov. Henry McMaster (R-S.C.) during a Tuesday news conference said he had spoken with Biden, and he called the federal response from the Biden-Harris administration \u201csuperb.\u201d Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R-Va.) praised Biden by name in a news release.<\/p>\n
Kemp has spoken with Biden and publicly thanked him for his administration\u2019s handling of the storm and its aftermath. But he has also said he is \u201coutraged\u201d that some rural areas of the state were not covered by Biden\u2019s disaster declaration; Biden said Thursday he expected that ultimately \u201cevery county in the state will be approved.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump was in Georgia two days before Harris, which his team saw as a political win. Biden and Harris said that state and local leaders had asked them not to visit immediately, to avoid interfering with emergency officials conducting rescue and recovery operations.<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s running mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), was in Virginia on Thursday, where he acknowledged FEMA had done a good job but said some of the storm\u2019s victims were \u201cforgotten.\u201d<\/p>\n
Josh Holmes, a Republican consultant, said Harris faces particular risk as part of an incumbent administration.<\/p>\n
\u201cNone of these events are good,\u201d Holmes said. \u201cThere is a way, with competent leadership, to make disasters work for you with the way you handle them. But when you have problems that have no easy answer and are getting worse, it\u2019s never good for an incumbency.\u201d<\/p>\n
But there are downsides for Trump, too. Hurricane Helene left some of its greatest damage in rural North Carolina and Georgia, regions that are home to some of Trump\u2019s strongest supporters.<\/p>\n
Trump advisers have held several calls in recent days to discuss how to get these people to vote, thinking that they number in the hundreds of thousands. They also think some of the people are displaced and others are where mail service has stopped. Trump said Friday he was worried about lives, not votes.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think people have come to understand how extensive the damage is,\u201d Rove said. \u201cSome are physically gone because their homes are wiped out, and others might have a response in how they see the government.\u201d<\/p>\n
Harris\u2019s advisers are hoping to seize on recent events as a chance to showcase her as a potential commander in chief. Throughout last weekend, they began discussing altering the candidate\u2019s schedule as the destruction from the hurricane became clear. By Sunday evening, she had decided to cancel events in Las Vegas and instead return to Washington. Harris plans to visit storm-hit parts of North Carolina on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Her aides say they are not unduly worried about the hurricane\u2019s political impact, and have seen it as an opportunity to show her responding to a crisis. She made the decision to go on solo trips to the region rather than jointly with Biden, with coordination so their trips did not overlap.<\/p>\n
\u201cTrump has not capitalized on this because he has no discipline,\u201d said one Harris adviser, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal strategy. \u201cWe see it as stable versus chaotic, serious versus unserious, solution-oriented versus political. We feel good about that contrast.\u201d<\/p>\n
It has always been Trump\u2019s central strategy to portray Biden \u2014 and now Harris \u2014 as a leader who let the country descend into chaos, with unchecked immigration, rampant inflation and soaring crime. All three of those indicators have fallen in recent months, in some cases dramatically.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe World is on fire and spiraling out of control. We have no leadership, no one running the Country. We have a nonexistent President in Joe Biden, and a completely absent Vice President, Kamala Harris \u2026\u201d Trump said in response to questions from The Post.<\/p>\n
Overseas, however, the war in the Middle East has only become wider and more dangerous.<\/p>\n
Trump insists that major wars would cease if he were president, and that the Middle East in particular was safer during his administration. The Republican nominee has not said exactly how he would end the conflict, and he has sent mixed signals about his position, at times urging Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to bring the war to a rapid conclusion, and other times saying he would support Israel for the long haul.<\/p>\n
Harris, for her part, has tried to balance crosscurrents in her party. Monday will mark one year since the Oct. 7 attack in which Hamas militants invaded Israel and killed around 1,200 people and kidnapped more than 250. Israel\u2019s counterattack has killed more than 41,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza health ministry, triggering a humanitarian crisis that has reduced much of Gaza to rubble.<\/p>\n
The war has reverberated in American politics, dividing Democrats and triggering widespread protests from Arab Americans who feel alienated by the party\u2019s defense of Israel. Harris has signaled a slightly different approach from Biden\u2019s, at times speaking more passionately about the plight of Palestinians, while saying Israel has a right to defend itself. She met on Friday with a group of Arab Americans during a campaign stop in Michigan.<\/p>\n
The strike by the International Longshoremen\u2019s Association strike this week was another reminder of how major events can surge unexpectedly into a campaign. If the strike had been prolonged, economists say, there could have been significant disruptions to the supply chain, triggering shortages and price spikes.<\/p>\n
Harris tried to use the strike to her advantage, saying she supported the dock workers while Trump was hostile to blue-collar unions. Trump blamed Harris and Biden for the economic conditions that he said triggered the strike.<\/p>\n
On Thursday night, the dock workers and port owners reached a temporary agreement, and the union agreed to end the strike until January while negotiations continue. Democrats also got a general economic boost Friday, with a surprisingly strong employment report showing that employers added 254,000 jobs in September and unemployment dropped to 4.1 percent.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to applaud all involved for their efforts,\u201d Harris said about the longshoremen agreement. \u201cThis step indicates progress toward a strong contract and represents the power of collective bargaining.\u201d<\/p>\n
One crisis, for now, off the table.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Deadly flooding has cut off power and water in large swaths of the Southeast, and storm damage could hamper voting ahead of the election. A longshoremen strike briefly shut down ports along the East and Gulf Coasts, leading Democrats to panic. Bombs and assassinations have put the Middle East on the brink of a regional […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":10656,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10655","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10655","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10655"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10655\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10656"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}