November surprise: Dismal jobs report gives Trump last-minute political ammunition to fire at Harris
With four days to go before Election Day, former President Donald Trump's campaign quickly took aim at Vice President Kamala Harris over the latest unemployment figures from the federal government, which indicated only 12,000 jobs were created in October.
The jobs created last month were far below estimates of up to 120,000 and were the lowest in four years.
Fueling the nosedive were disruptions from devastating Hurricanes Helene and Milton, the crippling Boeing strike and other labor disputes.
However, regardless of the contributing factors, the figures offered the Trump campaign instant ammunition to fire at Harris, as two major party presidential nominees remain locked in a margin-of-error race in both the national polls and surveys in the crucial seven battleground states that will likely determine the White House winner.
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"BRUTAL," was the instant reaction from the Trump campaign on social media, as it promoted clips of coverage of the jobs report from the cable news and business networks' morning shows.
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Minutes later, Trump campaign national press secretary Karoline Leavitt argued that "this jobs report is a catastrophe and definitively reveals how badly Kamala Harris broke our economy."
"Working families are being ripped off by the Harris-Biden economic agenda. Kamala broke the economy. President Trump will fix it," Leavitt claimed.
Jobs – up until now – have been a shining bright spot for the Biden-Harris administration, amid overall dismal public opinion ratings on the economy as the cumulative effort of inflation continues to weigh down on many Americans.
President Biden, whom Harris replaced in July atop the Democrats' 2024 national ticket, emphasized in a statement minutes after the Labor Department report on the jobs numbers that "unemployment was unchanged at 4.1%."
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Additionally, he highlighted that "the devastation from Hurricanes Helene and Milton, and new strike activity, lowered job growth. Job growth is expected to rebound in November as our hurricane recovery and rebuilding efforts continue."
Touting the successes of the Biden/Harris administration, the president touted "America’s economy remains strong, with 16 million jobs created since I took office, including an average 180,000 jobs created each month over the last year—more than the year before the pandemic. We have the lowest average unemployment rate of any administration in 50 years, our economy has grown more than any presidential term."
Trump once held a large polling lead over the vice president when it comes to handling the economy, but many recent surveys pointed to the Democratic nominee narrowing the gap with the GOP standard-bearer on the issue, which remains upmost on the minds of American voters.
The latest Fox News polling in battleground Michigan, released this week, indicated Harris just two points behind Trump in handling the nation's economy. In Pennsylvania, the biggest prize of the key swing states, the former president's advantage over the vice president on the issue was just four points.