**As Labor Day Approaches: The Honeymoon Ends for Harris, and Hostage Killings Complicate Her Position**
**The rivalry between competitors has become intense, and the race could go in any direction**
America has reached Labor Day, that crucial event in an election year when voters start paying real attention, the final shape of the race becomes clear, and campaigns begin to focus on the finer details.
According to Steve Shepard, an analyst at Politico, “Given the advantage Republicans have in the Electoral College, a race where Vice President Kamala Harris is leading nationally by an average of 2 to 4 percentage points is akin to a knife fight in a phone booth, set to be decided in fewer states than usual.”
Steve adds, “Polls are unusually close in all of them, and this is not expected to change much over the next nine weeks. In recent presidential elections, the state of the race in polls on Labor Day is very close to where it ends up once the votes are counted.”
Democratic circles have begun to wonder if there are signs that the six-week honeymoon for Harris may finally be over.
Headlines surrounding two tragedies abroad—one old and one new—have cast a shadow over the Democratic ticket and given Donald Trump a fresh opportunity to deepen his attacks on Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, after weeks of struggling to find an effective line of attack.
The killing of 23-year-old American Hirsch Goldberg-Polin by Hamas, one of the six young hostages brutally murdered this week, has fueled a wave of new Republican attacks on Harris and President Joe Biden.
Meanwhile, protests erupted in Israel against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, accusing him of not engaging more seriously in peace talks.
In the United States, Trump and other Republicans have described the killings as a failure of resolve to support Israel in its fight against Hamas.
For example, Breitbart ran a headline that read, “Hostages Found Dead in Rafah Where Kamala Harris Told Israel Not to Enter.” Or the countless tweets featuring images of Biden on the beach or attacking Harris’s record on Labor Day.
Conservative commentator Erick Erickson wrote on X: “Hamas shot an American citizen in the back of the head, and Joe Biden was sitting on the beach while Kamala Harris was on the campaign trail talking about joy.”
Trump himself intervened, writing: “Make no mistake – this happened because comrade Kamala Harris and corrupt Joe Biden are bad leaders. Americans are being slaughtered abroad while Kamala insults soldiers’ families and makes up lies about them, and Biden sleeps on the beach on this, the 16th day of his vacation.”
Harris issued a statement condemning Hamas for the killing of Goldberg-Polin and the other hostages, and she spoke with his family yesterday. She remained silent on Netanyahu’s role. But earlier today, when speaking to reporters, Biden answered “No” when asked if the Prime Minister was doing enough to secure a deal.
This morning, before heading to the campaign trail in Detroit and Pittsburgh, Harris joined Biden and his national security team as they met with the hostage deal negotiators to discuss the way forward, which may, for the first time, include presenting a final offer to Israel and Hamas later this week.
—by/radwa sherif ✏️✏️📚