Trump and Harris are at a stalemate – could an October surprise change the situation?

With just a month left until Election Day, the battle between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris amounts to a bare-knuckle election brawl.

Victory will likely be decided by the slimmest of margins, as the race for the White House remains deadlocked nationally and in battleground states. If all the new voters are involved and all the undecided voters are swayed, they could potentially land a decisive punch.

“In extremely close races, where voters are split down the middle, a difference of one or two points can be decisive,” said David Greenberg, a presidential historian at Rutgers University.

Party strategists are focused on how to gain that decisive advantage, but it’s up to events beyond their control, unexpected developments, that could easily upend the campaign in the final weeks. It can happen.

This year has already been a year of political shock, from a candidate who survived two assassination attempts and was convicted to President Joe Biden dropping out of the race in favor of a much younger vice president.

But remember Trump’s Access Hollywood tapes and Hillary Clinton’s emails in 2016 – when the surprise wears off in October, it’s easy to bounce back or regain momentum from a cycle of missteps and bad news. There is little time left.

This week alone there have been several new developments that could turn into a political storm by November 5th.

The first potential political storm was literal. Hurricane Helen hit two major election battleground states, Georgia and North Carolina, last week. As the presidential election has focused attention on both states, the humanitarian disaster, which has already killed more than 130 people, has become a political issue.

Harris stopped in Georgia earlier this week to pledge long-term support for the region, and on Saturday visited people affected by the storm in North Carolina.

“We’ve been here for a long time,” she said in Georgia.

Meanwhile, both states are essentially must-win states for Trump, with polls showing a dead heat. During a visit to Georgia, the former president claimed that Americans were losing out on emergency aid money because it was spent on immigrants. In fact, the two different programs have separate budgets, and the Biden administration accused Republicans of spreading “bold lies” about disaster response funding.

When disaster strikes, it’s not easy for governments to keep everyone happy. If Mr. Trump’s attacks bear fruit, voter dissatisfaction with recovery efforts could influence outcomes in two of the nation’s most closely watched states.

Thousands of miles away from the disaster-ravaged southeastern United States, a man-made crisis continues to pervade American politics. The Gaza conflict is at risk of escalating into a regional conflagration as Israeli forces battle Hezbollah forces in southern Lebanon and Iran fired hundreds of missiles at Israel earlier this week.

Although Harris has presented herself as a candidate for change, she has not distanced herself from the current administration when it comes to U.S.-Israel policy. That comes with risks.

Hopes that any kind of pre-election ceasefire would materialize in the Gaza Strip appear to have been completely dashed, and at this point the White House is trying to ensure that Israel’s inevitable response to Tuesday’s Iranian attack does not become an all-out war.

On Thursday night, Biden didn’t exactly offer reassuring remarks.

“I don’t believe there will be an all-out war,” he said. “I think it’s avoidable. But there’s still a lot of work to be done.”

Even though American voters don’t usually think directly about foreign policy when casting their votes, the war has had an impact on the Democratic Party as well.

Harris’ pledge to continue delivering arms to Israel is a problem for two major parts of the Democratic Party’s base. It’s Michigan’s Arab-Americans, who must win, and young voters on campus, where anti-war protests could start again.

Conflicts in the Middle East are also fueling concerns about financial conditions. Oil prices soared more than 5% on Thursday after Biden mentioned the possibility of Israel targeting Iranian refineries.

If there’s one thing American consumers are especially sensitive about, it’s the high price of gas at the pump.

Across the board, polls continue to show that the economy is the top issue for American voters. And Harris and Democrats received good news on that front Friday, with the latest jobs report showing solid job growth over the past few months and the unemployment rate falling to 4.1%.

But Greenberg said voters’ concerns about the economy go beyond the latest jobs numbers.

“When people complain about the economy, what they’re really complaining about is the long-term failure in certain parts of the country, rural America’s deindustrialized communities,” he says. . “These are areas that are hurting even when the economy is doing well.”

Throughout much of the campaign, including a recent CNN poll, Mr. Trump has outperformed Ms. Harris when voters were asked who they thought would do a better job on economic policy. But there are signs that his lead may not be confirmed, with a Cook Political Report survey of battleground states showing the two candidates tied on which candidate would do the best job of combating inflation. There is also.

One of the most pressing economic pitfalls for Democrats also resolved this week. A longshoremen’s strike has temporarily closed key ports on the East Coast and Gulf of Mexico for the first time in 50 years. The two sides returned to the negotiating table in January and agreed to reopen the port. Had work stoppages continued, supply chains could have been disrupted and consumer prices could have risen in the weeks before the election.

Meanwhile, illegal immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border has returned to pre-pandemic levels after hitting a record high of 249,741 in December.

The effects of the border surge are still being felt in many U.S. cities, but the urgency of the crisis may be fading.

While much of this week’s news could pose difficulties for Harris and Democrats, it hasn’t been smooth sailing for Trump.

His actions during the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol were cited Wednesday by a federal judge in special counsel Jack Smith’s filing outlining the case and evidence against Donald Trump in his attempt to overturn the 2020 election results. It was made public and once again attracted attention.

The document, which argues that the former president should not be granted presidential immunity from prosecution, contained new details about Trump’s words and actions in the lead-up to the Capitol riot by his supporters.

A recent CNN poll found that voters favor Harris over Trump on the issue of “protecting democracy,” 47% to 40%. So any renewed focus on the tumultuous final weeks of Trump’s presidency could be an advantage for Democrats.

The term “October Surprise” has been a fixture in the American political lexicon for nearly 50 years. Campaigns fear unexpected headlines and crises that could distract candidates from their message and change the trajectory of their campaigns.

In a year when electoral differences in battleground states can be measured in tens of thousands of votes, even the smallest ripple in public opinion can influence the White House.

Greenberg said November’s voting is shaping up to be tough.

“I don’t have any nails left,” he says. “Regardless of where your loyalties lie, I can fully imagine that no matter which way this election goes, riding on that vote will have very consequential consequences.”

North American correspondent Anthony Zurcher covers the race for the White House in his twice-weekly U.S. Elections Unspin newsletter. UK readers can sign up here. People outside the UK can sign up here.