Campaign issues for both Kamala Harris and Donald Trump have escalated this week, providing potential headaches for the 2024 hopefuls with less than two months to go until November’s election.
For Harris, the large-scale pager attack in Lebanon and Syria against Hezbollah which left at least 12 people dead, including two children, and thousands injured, could increase pressure from progressives over the Biden administration’s response to the ongoing crisis in the Middle East.
Iran-backed Hezbollah has blamed Israel for the attack involving remote detonating pagers. Both sides have been exchanging fire at the Israeli-Lebanon border since Palestinian military group Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, resulting in the war in Gaza. The Israeli military declined to comment on the blasts.
The pager attack has raised fears of a wider war with Israel and Hezbollah, and has almost guaranteed there will not be a Gaza ceasefire deal, which Harris has urged, before November’s elections, nor a successful release of any further Israeli hostages.
For Trump, voters have been reminded of the GOP’s push to restrict abortion rights after reports emerged that a woman in Georgia suffered a “preventable” death in 2022 after not receiving timely medical care due to the state’s law generally banning termination following the sixth week of pregnancy.
On Tuesday, Senate Republicans also voted to block a bill which would have enshrined in vitro fertilization (IVF) treatment protections into federal law and expanded insurance coverage for fertility treatments.
Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris (R) shakes hands with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump before the TV presidential debate. Both candidates’ election issues are worsening.
SAUL LOEB / AFP/Getty Images
Harris has shown an eagerness to quell some dissent of the Gaza conflict, including showing sympathy for Palestinian suffering and condemning the “images of dead children” killed in the war.
As of mid-August at least 40,000 Palestinians had been killed in Gaza, 623 Palestinians in the West Bank and 530 people in Lebanon, according to The Associated Press. These all occurred following the initial Hamas raid which left 1,200 dead in Israel and around 250 taken hostage by attackers.
In late July, when Harris was the new presumptive 2024 Democratic candidate, the vice president also met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and called for a ceasefire in Gaza, saying she “will not be silent” about Palestinian casualties.
However, Harris also repeatedly stated that she will support “Israel’s right to defend itself.”
Harris also faced criticism for not pushing for an arms embargo against Israel to force a ceasefire deal, as well as suggestions that she will not do anything drastically different from President Joe Biden to end the conflict if she becomes the commander-in-chief next year.
The pager attack in Lebanon arrives weeks after Harris reiterated Israel’s “right to defend itself” following a strike in Hezbollah’s stronghold in Beirut.
With Israel accused of carrying out the pager attack against the Hamas-allies of Hezbollah, the chances of any peace deal being agreed before November look marginal at best, with an escalation of fighting more likely.
The issue of a lack of potential ceasefire could prove more significant in Michigan, a key swing state where Harris will be looking to beat Trump in November. It has the largest American-Arab population in the U.S.
Harris’ office has been contacted for comment via email.
Ever since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022, Democrats have made abortion rights one of their key campaign issues in elections across the country.
Harris herself has also suggested that if elected president, Trump will push for a national abortion ban, which the president has denied.
On Monday, ProPublica released a report that Georgia woman Amber Nicole Thurman, 28, died in August 2022 after a rare complication from taking abortion pills. She was not able to seek timely medical care because of the state’s restrictions on the procedure.
In a statement, Harris claimed Thurman’s death, which a state medical review committee deemed “preventable,” was “exactly what we feared” when Roe v. Wade was struck down.
“In more than 20 states, Trump Abortion Bans are preventing doctors from providing basic medical care. Women are bleeding out in parking lots, turned away from emergency rooms, losing their ability to ever have children again. Survivors of rape and incest are being told they cannot make decisions about what happens next to their bodies. And now women are dying. These are the consequences of Donald Trump’s actions,” Harris said.
“If Donald Trump gets the chance, he will sign a national abortion ban, and these horrific realities will multiply.”
Trump’s office has been contacted for comment via email.
On Tuesday, the Senate failed to pass a bill aimed at enshrining IVF treatment after Republicans voted against it. The bill failed 51-44, falling short of the required 60-vote threshold.
The bill is the second time it has failed in the upper chamber after the Alabama Supreme Court ruled the embryos used in IVF should be considered children. The move prompted providers to temporarily halt fertility treatments in the state and threatened the service elsewhere.
Many Republicans, including Trump, support IVF, and the former president recently stated he would require the government or insurance companies to pay for IVF if he is elected. During the September 10 debate with Harris, Trump also claimed that he has been a “leader on fertilization.”
However, Democrats have used the vote to suggest that, despite what they say, the GOP will still place restrictions on IVF and other procedures such as abortion if given the chance.
“We’ve seen Republicans tie themselves in knots over their support for IVF, claiming they support access to IVF, support insurance paying for IVF treatments, and support helping families pay for IVF,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer told reporters. ‘And then when the rubber hits the road, they vote no.”
Schumer also suggested ahead of the vote that if GOP Senators vote no on the IVF bill then that is “further proof that Project 2025 is alive and well.”
Trump has also been accused of supporting The Heritage Foundation’s conservative Project 2025, a manifesto that includes introducing stricter laws on reproductive health care. The former president has tried to distance himself from the project several times.
Ahead of the vote, South Dakota Senator John Thune told reporters that “Republicans support IVF, full stop,” but Democrats were merely trying put on a “show” by bringing an unnecessary bill back to the floor,
“This is not an attempt to make law. This is not an attempt to get an outcome or to legislate,” Thune said. “This is simply an attempt by Democrats to try and create a political issue where there isn’t one.”
