As potential voters flip their calendars over from September, Vice President Kamala Harris‘s and former President Donald Trump‘s campaigns are preparing for an October surprise.
But during an election cycle that has been repeatedly upended by unprecedented political developments, voters, particularly those who cast their ballot early, could be inured to this year’s surprise.
From Trump’s civil and criminal convictions in New York for sexual abuse, defamation, financial fraud, and falsifying business records and his two assassination attempts to Democrats mounting a pressure campaign on President Joe Biden to step aside as their 2024 presidential nominee 3 1/2 months before the election, Democratic strategist Mike Nellis joked that “it feels like every week has brought some kind of October surprise.”
“I have no idea what could upend the race at this time, especially since Trump is refusing to debate Harris,” Nellis told the Washington Examiner of a second debate between Harris and Trump. “We’ve had a lot of news condensed into a short period of time. I suspect people are largely just ready for this thing to be over.”
With William Casey, former President Ronald Reagan‘s 1980 campaign manager, popularizing the term “October surprise” more than 40 years ago, Republican strategist Cesar Conda did not “dare” to predict this election’s iteration but described them as traditionally involving a “war, an economic crisis, or a big political scandal.”
“Aside from the Middle East, there has been a lot of recent saber-rattling by China in its territorial disputes with the Philippines in the South China Sea and by North Korea with its simulated nuclear counter strikes,” Conda told the Washington Examiner. “The 2008 market crash was a big economic one and the lesson learned is that candidates need to be prepared for anything so as to avoid a PR nightmare this close to the election.”
Democratic strategist Jim Manley reiterated Conda’s concerns about tensions abroad having political repercussions at home as the Israel–Hamas war in Gaza approaches its first anniversary on Oct. 7 and is poised to expand to include Hezbollah in Lebanon. Israeli officials have reportedly started a ground invasion into Lebanon on Monday after Israel Defense Forces spent the weekend conducting raids along the two countries’s shared border and last week’s strike in Beirut that killed Hezbollah leader Hasan Nasrallah.
“I am increasingly concerned that Bibi Netanyahu, while doing everything he can to protect his own political fortunes, will continue to look for ways to influence our elections as well,” Manley told the Washington Examiner of the Israeli prime minister.
As Trump and his supporters criticize Harris and Biden for their response to Hurricane Helene amid campaign travel and a beach trip, respectively, Republican strategist Doug Heye added the natural disaster could potentially be an October surprise, depending on the death toll and recovery, as Hurricane Sandy was widely perceived as one in 2012.
To that end, campaigns are always preparing for surprises, or at least they should be, according to Northeastern University political science professor Costas Panagopoulos.
“While the specific nature of a late-breaking shake-up can be hard to predict, the recurrence of such events during the final stretch of the campaign suggests an October surprise is likely,” Panagopoulos told the Washington Examiner. “Campaigns will either have to exploit any such development for [its] advantage or do damage control.”
Recent elections have had some notable October surprises, although they have not created permanent political problems for Trump, only temporary hiccups.
In 2020, for example, the New York Times published information about Trump’s long undisclosed tax returns, including that he only paid $750 in taxes in 2016 and 2017 when he was president. That cycle, he and former first lady Melania Trump also contracted COVID-19, and explicit content from the laptop of Joe Biden’s son Hunter was circulated among reporters, though Democrats dismissed it as hacked or Russian disinformation at the time. The material was later authenticated by the Washington Examiner.
Four years earlier, there was the Hollywood Access tape, in which a hot microphone picked up Donald Trump bragging about grabbing women by their genitalia in 2005. On the same day the video was published by the Washington Post, there was a WikiLeaks email dump after Russia hacked 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton‘s campaign, such as campaign chairman John Podesta, and the Democratic National Committee.
Then former FBI Director James Comey informed Congress he had to take “appropriate investigative steps” related to Clinton’s use of a private email server before he again cleared of any criminal wrongdoing. Comey had earlier scrutinized her for being “extremely careless” with her emails.
For presidential historian David Pietrusza, October surprises have had minimal political impact on the “ultimate outcome” of recent elections, from former President George W. Bush‘s drunk driving revelation in 2000 to the Access Hollywood tape.
“The biggest bombshell probably was the 1884 ‘Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion’ comment by James G. Blaine supporter the Rev. Samuel Burchard that helped sink his candidate and elect Democrat Grover Cleveland,” Pietrusza told the Washington Examiner.
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But in 2024, the political ramifications of an October surprise could be more prominent for Donald Trump than they have in the past, with an NBC News poll last week finding that 51% of registered voters plan to vote early, either by mail or in person. Those voters tended to be leaning toward Harris and Election Day voters more toward Donald Trump, per the poll.
“If either campaign or outside group has any real dirt on their opponents in their back pockets, it could make sense to sit on it until it’s closer to Election Day to inflict maximum damage,” Panagopoulos, the Northwestern University professor, said. “That’s when many voters are paying the most attention and when there is less time to recover from any such attacks. Even if October surprises never come, campaigns should be ready to pounce or pivot.”