'A dogfight': Harris and Trump enter the final election stretch after Labor Day

WASHINGTON — An unprecedented summer has turned the presidential race on its head with two months to go until Election Day, showing a dead heat in key states between Democrat Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump as both candidates gear up for a final blitz after the Labor Day holiday weekend.

A race that was slipping away from President Joe Biden is competitive again after he withdrew July 21 and passed the baton to his vice president, who has captured support from key groups that had soured on him, most notably young and Black voters.

Harris, 59, has turned the issue of age from a potentially fatal liability to an asset for Democrats against the 78-year-old Trump. The former president, who was running with confidence against Biden, has appeared rattled at times by Harris, launching personal and racial attacks against a rival who would be the first woman and the first Indian American to be president. She has brushed them off.

“It’s a toss-up race,” Republican strategist Brad Todd said, cautioning that the GOP's fortunes are not as bright as they were when the Democratic nominee was the 81-year-old Biden.

Todd urged Trump to stay focused on defining Harris as a “far-left candidate” by highlighting the smorgasbord of positions she took during her 2020 campaign — on health care, energy, immigration and more. Harris has since sought to pivot to the center, while saying that her “values haven’t changed” in the last five years.

“To win, Donald Trump has to hold her accountable for the things she said she believes,” he said. “But thus far, he’s not shown a lot of interest in that.”

The summer of 2024 has delivered a sequence of events unseen in modern times, including an unusually early debate that proved fatal for Biden’s