- A trio of emergencies have occurred just five weeks before the 2024 presidential election.
- Violence in the Middle East, a strike by dock workers and Hurricane Helene could all affect the vote.
- Donald Trump and Kamala Harris will be forced to face crises in the final days of their campaign.
Violence in the Middle East, a massive labor strike among East Coast and Gulf Coast port workers, and the devastation of Hurricane Helene all hit just five weeks before the 2024 presidential election.
Hurricane Helene and other storms dumped more than 40 trillion gallons of rain on much of the Southeast U.S. — including two key swing states — late last month. The death toll passed 180 this week and hundreds of people are still missing as rescue efforts continue.
Just days later, more than 45,000 dockworkers at ports along the East and Gulf Coast went on strike, setting off a major work stoppage that is already impacting the US economy and disrupting the supply chain.
These two American disasters unfolded as the conflict in the Middle East intensified this week. Iran fired at least 180 rockets into Israel on Tuesday, calling the attack retaliation for a series of critical strikes Israel has launched against Hezbollah in Lebanon in recent weeks and the killing of a Hamas leader in Tehran in July. The Iranian attacks came hours after Israel said it had launched a limited ground incursion into southern Lebanon, pushing the region ever closer to an all-out war.
Political science experts warn that the convergence of these three crises may have an impact on voters’ decisions.
When events such as natural disasters and geopolitical crises occur, voters typically blame or reward the party responsible, depending on how that chaos unfolds, said Peter Loge, a former Obama adviser who is director of the School of Media and Relations. Public at George Washington University, said Business Insider.
Loge and David Jones, a pollster who is also a professor of political science at Baruch College at the City University of New York, said the party in power — the Democrats, in this case — is usually blamed for negative external events before an election. , which would put Vice President Kamala Harris at greater risk than former President Donald Trump.
However, these choices are only typical. Trump was shot in the ear during an assassination attempt in mid-July. Soon after, President Joe Biden announced he was dropping out of the race after a disastrous June debate. Then, last month, federal prosecutors charged another man with a separate assassination attempt against Trump.
Moreover, Americans are not choosing between a traditional incumbent and a challenger. Their options include a former president and a current vice president, which Randall Adkins, a political science professor at the University of Nebraska Omaha, said would complicate how these current crises affect the two campaigns.
“I think it’s going to be very difficult for voters to get a clear message and get the opposing views from the two candidates on these issues,” Adkins said.
But that doesn’t mean the American electorate isn’t paying attention. In the final sprint to Election Day, voters tend to view global forces through a political lens, Loge said. and uncontrollable situations quickly become political talking points.
“About four weeks after the presidential election, it’s really hard to separate global events from politics, which is unfortunate because these are global events that affect real people’s lives,” Loge said.
The vice presidential debate between Sen. JD Vance and Gov. Tim Walz on Tuesday night gave both candidates a platform to address the crises.
Loge said that before the debate, he predicted that Vance would work hard to connect Harris to current events, while Walz would focus on her quiet competence. His prediction came true within minutes.
The first question of the night centered on the violence between Iran and Israel. In his response, Vance said Iran had received unfrozen assets from the “Kamala Harris administration,” trying to paint her as more responsible for America’s actions than Biden. Under Trump’s leadership, he said, there was “peace through strength.”
Trump’s replacement also went after Harris’ record on immigration and inflation, repeatedly saying she had failed to enact economic change while in office.
Walz, for his part, worked to paint Trump as the candidate of chaos and Harris as a viable choice.
“What we’ve seen from Vice President Harris is we’ve seen consistent leadership,” he said of the Middle East. “We have seen a calm that is able to pull from coalitions, to bring them together, realizing that our allies matter.”
Tens of thousands of longshoremen are on strike. BRYAN R. SMITH
‘The matter of sleep’
The growing conflict between Israel and Iran raises foreign policy concerns, and the devastation of Hurricane Helene has left large parts of the American Southeast devastated. But Jones, the pollster, said it was an economic crisis created by the dock workers’ strike that would really derail the presidential race.
“The sleeper issue that might end up making the most difference is the dock workers’ strike, and that’s because the No. 1 issue Americans say when they talk to pollsters is the economy,” he told BI.
The strike will inevitably lead to complications with the country’s supply chain, which, in turn, could eventually lead to inflation — an outcome that would seriously hurt Harris, he said.
Logistics experts told BI that a strike lasting a week or two would create disruption but minimal widespread economic costs. However, anything longer would result in increased price pressures and shortages, especially in grocery stores.
And the affected ports are already feeling the impact: more container ships are docked than usual, and analysts at JPMorgan estimate that the closures could cost $5 billion a day.
“There’s a lot of evidence that when people are unhappy with the economy, they blame the incumbent party,” Jones said.
Republicans typically have the upper hand on economic issues among voters, but there is growing evidence that Harris’ policies on the issue are starting to rub off on Americans.
And while The dockworkers’ strike could spell trouble for Harris, it’s also the only crisis of the three that has any real chance of ending before Election Day, Adkins noted.
The war in the Middle East will most likely get worse before it gets better, and the cleanup from the hurricane could take years. But Long Beach and the ports could reach a deal before voters head to the polls, Adkins said.
Jones said the end of the strike could give Harris an opportunity to celebrate; he said he could picture a photo of her shaking hands with smiling port workers.
Most voters have already made up their minds. Grace Cary/Getty Images
Most voters have already made up their minds
Regardless of how the current crises evolve in the coming weeks, the presidential election will ultimately be decided by a small number of voters in a small number of states.
And Jones said the country’s intense partisanship also means external events simply don’t touch voters as much as they once did.
“I think at the presidential level right now, maybe 19 out of 20 people have already made up their minds,” Adkins said.
In 2020, Biden won the election by less than 45,000 votes in three swing states, Arizona, Georgia and Wisconsin.
Given how close past presidential races have been, if even a few thousand voters in key constituencies find themselves energized by the war in the Middle East, angered by the impact of the port workers’ strike or hurt by Helen, the crises could move the needle in November. .
What matters most now is how the candidates’ messages reach specific communities affected by these crises, Loge said. While those in the states of North Carolina and Georgia may be more focused on hurricane cleanup, Loge said Michigan’s must-win voters may be more concerned with the ongoing violence outside the state.
The Biden-Harris administration would be wise to project quiet authority in the coming weeks, Loge added. He said that in the meantime, he expected the Trump campaign to continue its messaging promoting Trump as the candidate of strength and Harris as the candidate of weakness.
Which message voters respond to the most will become clear on election day.