USA – With one month to election day, the contest between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris is the electoral equivalent of a bare-knuckle brawl.

The race for the White House still appears deadlocked, both nationally and in battleground states, so victory will be decided by the slimmest of margins – every new voter engaged, every undecided voter swayed, could help land a knock-out punch.

“In any super close race, where the electorate is divided down the middle, a difference of a percentage point or two could be decisive,” says David Greenberg, a presidential historian at Rutgers University.

While party strategists are focused on how to earn that decisive edge, it could just as easily be an event out of their control, an unexpected twist, that upends the campaign in the final weeks.

It’s already been a year of political shockwaves – from one candidate surviving two assassination attempts and being convicted of a crime, to another, President Joe Biden, dropping out of the race in favour of his much younger vice-president.

However, when the surprises drop in October – think Trump’s Access Hollywood tape or Hillary Clinton’s emails in 2016 – there is scarcely time left to recover or regain momentum after a misstep or bad news cycle. This week alone, there were several new rumbles that could turn into political storms by 5 November.

The first potential political storm was a literal one. Hurricane Helene tore through two key electoral battlegrounds last week, Georgia and North Carolina. Because of the intense focus on both states during this presidential race, a humanitarian disaster, with a death toll already over 200, has also become a political issue.  Harris pledged long-term aid to the region at a stop in Georgia earlier this week, and visited those affected by the storm in North Carolina on Saturday. “We’re here for the long haul,” she said in Georgia.

Meanwhile, both states are essentially must-wins for Trump, and polls show a dead heat. While visiting Georgia, the former president claimed that Americans were losing out on emergency relief money because it had been spent on migrants. In fact, the two distinct programmes have separate budgets, and the Biden administration accused Republicans of spreading “bold-faced lies” about funding for the disaster response.

When disaster strikes, it’s not easy for the government to keep everyone happy. If Trump’s attacks land, any voter dissatisfaction with recovery efforts could potentially impact the result in two of the most closely-watched states in the country. (BBC)…[+]