Trio of New Trials Overshadow Final Weeks of Presidential Campaign

WASHINGTON – A trio of new trials — a devastating hurricane, expanding conflict in the Mideast, and a dockworkers strike that threatens the U.S. economy — are looming over the final weeks of the presidential campaign and could help shape the public mood as voters decide between Democrat Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump.

How events shake out — and how the candidates respond — could be decisive as they claw for votes in battleground states.

The sitting president, Joe Biden, is still the steward of the U.S. economy and foreign policy at this tumultuous moment and may well bear ultimate responsibility for how they play out. But how Harris and Trump approach the three disparate issues could have rippling impacts on how Americans perceive their two choices this November.

“Unfortunately, there are going to be events like this, and this is where you see the leadership of a president show up,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters. “I think this should send a message to Americans: It matters. It matters who sits behind the Resolute Desk.”

Harris, with Biden’s help, is trying to display steady calm as a flurry of difficult problems arise all at once.

She and Biden on Tuesday toggled between directing Hurricane Helene recovery and rescue response work and huddling with aides in the White House Situation Room to watch as the U.S. helped Israel defend against a massive attack by Iran in retaliation for the killing of Tehran-backed leaders of Lebanese Hezbollah.

All the while, they were keeping close contact with economic advisers as dockworkers took to the picket line, a walkout stretching from ports in Maine to Texas that threatens to snarl supply chains and cause shortages and higher prices if it stretches on for more than a few weeks.

Trump, for his part, lashed out at Harris as being in over her head, while claiming that this sort of crush of problems never would have happened under his watch.

“We have been talking about World War III, and I don’t want to make predictions,” Trump said at a campaign event. “The whole world is laughing at us. That’s why Israel was under attack just a little while ago. Because they don’t respect our country anymore.”

Yet voters cast Trump aside four years ago in large part because of how they viewed his handling of the swirling economic, social, and public health challenges that emerged from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Biden, in comments to reporters before meeting with aides, seemed to acknowledge the growing frustration with the federal response to the massive storm.

“I’ve been in frequent contact with the governors and other leaders in the impacted areas, and we have to jumpstart this recovery process,” Biden said. He will travel to the Carolinas on Wednesday to get a closer look at the hurricane devastation. He is also expected to visit hurricane-impacted areas in Georgia and Florida later this week. “People are scared to death. People wonder whether they’re going to make it.”

Harris, meanwhile, is headed to Georgia on Wednesday and North Carolina in the coming days to do the same.

Tuesday’s vice-presidential debate offered a sampling of how the two campaigns were reacting to new developments to bolster their own messages and sharpen their attacks on their rivals.

Biden has stayed off the campaign trail since announcing in July that he was ending his reelection effort amid sliding public approval ratings.

His conspicuous absence underscores that Democrats see him as more of a liability than an asset in making the case for Harris.

But how well Biden deals with the three latest emergency situations could have a big impact on how undecided voters perceive Harris in these final days.

“President Biden can’t help Kamala Harris on the stump,” said Christopher Borick, director of the Muhlenberg College Institute of Public Opinion. “But in a campaign where you are turning over every rock in a few states to get that undecided voter, how he manages these crises over the next several weeks could have an impact.”

The Harris campaign understands the risks it faces with multiple crises converging all at once, especially given their varied and unpredictable nature. A prolonged strike, a bungled disaster response, or a further expansion of Middle East conflict could raise doubts about Biden’s leadership, and by extension that of his second-in-command.

At the same time, Harris campaign aides believe the perilous moment presents an opportunity to demonstrate to voters the stakes of who’s in the job and the seriousness with which they approach it.

The former president, in a speech and in social media postings, offered a mixture of prayer and concern for those impacted by Helene, jabs at Harris for the dockworkers strike, and an aside about the casting of Stanley Kubrick’s film “Full Metal Jacket.”

“The situation should have never come to this and, had I been president, it would not have,” Trump said in a statement about the strike.

Harris aides made a point of having the vice president deliver brief remarks on the Iranian attack on Tuesday in between taping interviews for her campaign, aiming to portray her as ready to take command.

Late-term tumult has been a fixture in American presidential politics, sometimes in the form of scandal and other times with an incumbent hoping to demonstrate that he or his preferred successor would be a steady head at an uncertain time.

Efforts by incumbents to help themselves or their party’s nominee with ‘October surprises’ go back quite a ways,” said Edward Frantz, a University of Indianapolis historian. “In this current climate, I’m not sure how many voters can be persuaded by a candidate this late in the game trying to show competency.”

Beaumont reported from Des Moines, Iowa. AP writer Josh Boak contributed to this report.