What fun 'October Surprises' are in store for the 2024 election?
One thing’s for certain, be on the lookout for an October Surprise (or two) to wreak havoc on the voting electorate and shake things up a bit between now and Election Day.
It’s ironic that after an exhausting 10 days of travel and helping to take care of my 2.5-year-old niece, I fell asleep partway through watching the live broadcast of the CBS Vice Presidential Debate because out of the three we’ve had so far this cycle, it was — by all reports — the most civil, and well, boring.
In both my own post-debate analysis and others I’ve seen, there were a few common threads. As a swing-state undecided voter told The Washington Post during their live-debate focus groups:
“I found this debate to be very amicable. They both seemed to care about the American people and were agreeable to what each other had to say.”
Even Axios’s post-debate coverage noted that:
The result was a refreshingly substantive, even cheery debate — a flashback to a less polarized America, and a preview of what's possible if the nation's current rage subsides.
This, my friends, is what political debates are traditionally like — and yet in the year 2024, watching Republican J.D. Vance and Democrat Tim Walz debate like two civilized humans was a strange and refreshing breath of fresh air.
The October 1st debate was yet another reminder that Americans are yearning for a return to a society in which people came together to help one another in times of need, putting aside their own agendas for the betterment of others. Or just a time when politics in general didn’t muster such division and hatred between Americans as it does now.
As a recent transplant to Charleston, South Carolina with family in the Greenville-Spartanburg area, I’ve bore witness to the best in human nature as people came together to help those affected by Hurricane Helene. While my parents and I personally babysat my 2.5-year-old niece for a week so my sister and her husband — both hospital workers — could take care of things back in Greenville, I know we were among the lucky ones. My sister didn’t have much property damage, but she has friends who lost their homes in the storm, and those in other parts of the Blue Ridge Mountains (such as Asheville, North Carolina) fared even worse and will be rebuilding for years as a result of Helene (and later, Milton).
They call it an “October Surprise” because it typically affects a political campaign in the month of October, but it can truly be anytime anytime after Labor Day. In 2008, for example, mounting loan losses plus the fall of Lehman Brothers on September 15th sent the stock market into a major recession and ultimately resulted in Barack Obama’s presidential victory seven weeks later.
Sometimes, we think we’re going to get an October Surprise, and it ends up being a complete nothingburger. A perfect example of this would be back in 2016 when footage surfaced of an old Access Hollywood interview featuring inappropriate comments about women by then-GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump.
Already this month, we’ve had:
The aftermath and devastation of Hurricanes Helene and Milton;
Multiple labor strikes on both coasts (Boeing workers in Seattle & East Coast port workers);
Escalating tensions in the Middle East between Israel and Hamas/Hezbollah;
A newly unsealed legal brief and redacted document dump related to the Special Counsel’s January 6th case against Trump;
And who knows what else is coming?!?
Recent polling suggests that the race between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump remains neck-and-neck, meaning that the slightest change in circumstances (aka an October Surprise or two) could have a major impact on the race. So let’s take a look at some of the October Surprises we’ve already had.
To start, a large chunk of the destruction caused by Hurricane Helene affected those living in or around the Blue Ridge Mountains of the Carolinas, Tennessee, and Georgia. Except for Asheville proper (Buncombe County, North Carolina), these areas tend to vote for Republican candidates in general elections and if there are issues with voter turnout because of the storm, this could impact Trump’s ability to carry North Carolina or Georgia in November.
While the above map was released before Hurricane Milton’s landfall on October 8th, its data also foretells the impact that the once Category 5 storm could have on the vote in Florida. By following the I-4 corridor across the peninsula of the Sunshine State, Milton traveled through counties that are both more populous and historically have a more liberal bend than Helene did — counties like Hillsborough, Pinellas, Sarasota, Orange, and Volusia. All this could result in lower-than-anticipated early vote returns for Kamala Harris and other state-level Democrats at a time when the campaigns were bullish headed into November.
And trust me, millions upon millions of people were displaced initially as a result of Milton — likely far more at the end of the day than Helene. I was supposed to be at a client conference in Tampa that week and had to evacuate. Below is a picture of the bay that I took from my hotel room on Sunday, October 6th.
According to FiveThirtyEight.com, which provides an average of all public polling available, the presidential race is currently a dead heat in both North Carolina and Georgia — while Trump holds a slight edge over Harris in Florida.
With the economy and inflation still the top issue for voters, the bicoastal union strikes could also have a small impact on the outcome of the election. A longtime union supporter, President Joe Biden said at the outset of both that he would not invoke the 1947 Taft-Hawley Act, which would’ve given him the power to end the strikes via collective bargaining. Harris later signaled that she’d support him in that decision.
Fortunately, the port workers’ strike ended after a few days, preventing a major breakdown of the American supply chain and allowing us to avoid a situation in which everyday essentials such as groceries, electronics, and holiday gifts became even more expensive. (It also might have handed Trump another term in office.) The Boeing workers’ strike lasted nearly a month, however, which could lead to minimal disruptions in air travel & freight shipping as the company begins to normalize its operations.
With just a few weeks left before Election Day, there’s still a myriad of things that could impact both the presidential race as well as those down-ticket. But one thing’s for certain — no matter how perfect one’s campaign is this fall, be on the lookout for an October Surprise (or two) to wreak havoc on the voting electorate and shake things up a bit between now and November 5th.