Early voting has started, so you have to wonder if any October surprise will change the shape of the Presidential race.
CIA Director Bill Casey gets credit for dubbing President Carter’s efforts to free the American hostages in Iran as a potential October Surprise, a term now used by the pundit class to describe any late-breaking news that could potentially change the election.
October surprises come in all shapes in sizes.
In the 19th Century, James Blaines attended a rally late in the campaign where a Presbyterian preacher condemned the “Rum, Romanism and Religion” of his opponent and eventual winner Grover Cleveland. That was a total self-inflicted wound.
In 1920, Democrats spread rumors in the days leading up to election that Warren G. Harding was actually of African-American descent. Harding would spend the rest of his campaign telling voters how white he was, and he ended up winning.
In 1972, Richard Nixon had Henry Kissinger do a press conference in the waning days of that election, telling voters that “Peace was at hand.” Nixon won in a landslide.
In 1992, Special prosecutor Lawrence Walsh announced an indictment of former Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger in the Iran-Contra affair that had bedeviled the previous Reagan Administration. Republicans thought the indictment was timed to hurt the reelection efforts of George H.W. Bush, which it did. He lost to Bill Clinton.
In 2000, revelations that George W. Bush had a drunk driving conviction almost scuttled his efforts to beat Al Gore. That too happened in the closing days of the campaign.
In 2012, Chris Christie hugged Barack Obama in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, a picture that the Obama campaign used effectively to show his bipartisan stripes.
In 2016, Democrats got their hands on the so-called “Pussy tapes” and released them to the press. Donald Trump had explained to Billy Bush that very famous people like himself could grab beautiful young ladies by the pussy and they let him because he was very famous. The tape revelation served to separate the wheat from the chaff, as several Republicans urged Trump to quit the race, which of course, he didn’t.
In that same race, Hillary Clinton had her own October Surprise, as James Comey announced that he was going to investigate the emails that she had stored on a private server.
In 2020, it became clear that October surprises, to be effective, had to actually start in September, because of early voting. Donald Trump debated Joe Biden on September 29th and his performance was so terrible, it drove women voters into the hands of the challenger. It was later announced that Trump had Covid during the debate. In the 2nd debate, Trump handily defeated Biden but it was too little, too late, and Biden was able to narrowly win the election.
This October, there are several potential surprises that could shape the election, but time is ticking.
The dock-worker’s strike could cripple the economy at exactly the wrong time for Kamala Harris. Joe Biden seems content to see it play out with him. “Let it burn”, he seems to be saying to the woman who couped against him.
Hurricane Helene has hit Georgia and North Carolina hard and both campaigns are trying to do their best to figure out the ramification of these two potential swing states.
Hillary Clinton has already warned that the Trump campaign has an October surprise up its sleeve. She said that Trump-inspired conspiracy theories will distort and pervert Kamala Harris. I don’t know exactly what that means, but sounds entertaining.
The Biden Administration is working hard to trying to find a peace deal in either Ukraine or in the Middle East, but it doesn’t look like things are getting any better, especially in Lebanon. I don’t think any of the hostages will be coming home any time soon.
The Fed lowered interest rates and that seems to have juiced the stock market, which is good for investors. But I think it is too late to have a wider impact on voters.
You can assume that the Democrats will drop some more opposition research about Trump, but really, how much more can they drop.
Jack Smith is also trying to get Trump indicted once again, as the year’s long campaign to get the former President thrown in jail has yielded meager results. Every indictment has usually increased Trump’s popularity ratings.
Trump is already clearly defined in this race, while Kamala Harris is clearly undefined. People know what Trump stands for and how he will govern, although he keeps making campaign proposals on the fly, without much regard for their costs.
But voters still have no idea who Kamala Harris is, what she wants to do as President and what kind of leadership she will bring to the White House. Clearly, Democratic strategists believe that keeping things vague and gauzy works to their advantage, but I believe it also makes them vulnerable to another October surprise. If the voters know nothing about a candidate, they are willing to believe anything.