TOLEDO, Ohio — With Election Day less than a month away, the race for the White House - as well as many House and Senate seats - is ramping up. But the final stretch of an election season is often accompanied by what many refer to as an "October surprise." Here's what it is - and what it may not be.
The October Surprise: A definition
According to a CBS News article written in October 2020, when former president Donald Trump was seeking reelection against now President Joe Biden, an "October surprise" is an unexpected event that occurs late in the presidential campaign with the potential to change the course of the election.
These events can be manmade, such as the release of controversial information about a candidate. Or they can be natural, such as severe weather events. Purportedly, these events (and there may be many in a single October) have the capacity to alter the direction of a presidential election.
October Surprises of Elections Past
The term "October surprise" was coined in 1980, when former president Jimmy Carter and his administration failed to free the 52 American hostages held in Iran before Election Day. University of Virginia Center for Politics director Larry Sabato told CBS News it ultimately became the very thing - the surprise - that cinched the presidency for Ronald Reagan. Had the hostages been freed prior to Election Day, Sabato argued, it would have been an October surprise in Carter's favor.
Sabato also suggested that an October (or rather, September) surprise occurred more than a century before the term entered the political lexicon. He said Abraham Lincoln and his cabinet, already well into the midst of the American Civil War, widely believed Lincoln would lose his second term in 1864. But when Union General William Tecumseh Sherman took Atlanta, it raised spirits in the North and secured Lincoln's reelection, Sabato asserted.
More recently, author and Washington Post reporter Devlin Barrett argued in his book, appropriately titled "October Surprise: How the FBI Tried to Save Itself and Crashed an Election," that then-FBI Director James Comey's October 2016 letter to Congress was the October surprise that won the election for Trump.
Natural disasters are also sometimes labeled October surprises, as federal response could sway voters toward or away from the incumbent, or even impact a voter's access to polls. Hurricane Sandy in 2012 was called an October surprise by some, including CBS News. The Category 3 hurricane affected planned campaign stops of both former President Barack Obama and presidential candidate Mitt Romney when the storm made landfall in New England, just days before Election Day.
Do October Surprises actually matter?
While some evidence in the examples seem to indicate an October surprise can affect the outcome of an election, some political scholars say it is actually the narrative surrounding the event, rather than the event itself, that may impact voters.
To scholar Ramon Morales Izaguirre, October surprises are misconstrued. In a 2023 paper, Izaguirre argued that political science discourse must work to "overcome the misconception that equates any campaign-related event in October, whether fortuitous or deliberate, with or without shifts in popularity, as an October surprise."
Izaguirre also refutes the October 1912 assassination attempt of Theodore Roosevelt, 2012's Hurricane Sandy and Trump's contagion of COVID-19 in 2020 as October surprises.
"None of these episodes had a substantial impact on voting turnout," Izaguirre wrote.
But Izaguirre didn't argue October surprises don't exist. Rather, they "have the misleading reputation of changing votes when their actual effect is to temporarily affect popularity."
Some October surprises, too, whether the term is purely narratological or truly empirical, don't end up being detrimental to a candidate's campaign. CBS News cited, for example, the Oct. 7, 2016 release of the notorious "Access Hollywood" tape, in which Trump bragged about sexually assaulting women. The event did not block his path to the White House.
October surprise, 2024
Will there be an October surprise in 2024? Has there already been one? Using the traditional definition of the term, there are a few contenders.
Some have suggested the dockworker strike, which began on Oct. 1 and was suspended after three days, was a short-lived October surprise.
Meanwhile, Hurricane Helene made landfall in the US in late September, bringing catastrophic flooding to the southeastern US, and killing 230 people. Hurricane Milton remains in the Gulf of Mexico as an extremely powerful major hurricane. It is expected to make landfall in Florida late Wednesday or early Thursday and its effects and disaster response could lead to a shift in sentiment.