The October Surprise: Will Americans Even Care?
By: James Holley
Tags: Politics, News, Media, Election 2020, Government

Typically, the month leading up to Election Day includes deliberate, carefully timed news stories designed to sway public opinion enough to influence the outcome. The strategy, for most campaigns and political organizations, is to leave the public with what they view as the most damaging and scandalous story they can find before everyone goes to the polls.

However, the public has seen such a constant bombardment of political news these past few years, fueled by intensifying partisanship and outlandish rhetoric by the President, that another ‘wild and unforgettable’ scandal reported in October may do little to persuade anyone. How truly surprised can we be about anything anymore?

In the past, the October surprise tactic usually makes sense given America’s short attention span. Campaigns, especially for the presidency, have historically waited until October to release the story they hope will captivate the nation and push them to victory. Political scientists prefer not attribute the October surprise to election results due to the numerous factors present at the end of an election, and some political scientists go as far as saying these stories do not usually have a lasting impact on vote choice.

Keeping in mind that it’s difficult to quantify the effects that these last minute stories have on electoral outcomes, it’s safe to say that they have the potential to reinforce a victory or flip the script in favor of the underdog. This much is clear, and campaigns have been observed employing this strategy since as early as the 1980 election between President Carter and Republican nominee Ronald Reagan and beyond. In order to get a better understanding of how this tactic works, we can look at a few cases from recent history.

Presidential Election of 1980, Carter v. Reagan:

The leading story in 1980 was the Iran hostage crisis in which 66 Americans were held for 444 days, until the day of President Reagan’s inauguration, at the U.S. embassy in Tehran. The timing of the hostage release on January 20th, 1981 prompted what is now referred to as the October surprise conspiracy theory where it was alleged that the Reagan campaign negotiated with Iran before the 1980 election to continue holding the American hostages until after Reagan had won.

The charge was that the Reagan campaign knew the successful negotiation and release of American hostages by the Carter Administration would have hurt their chances at victory, so an under-the-table deal was struck to prolong their release.

This October surprise is considered a conspiracy theory because both the House and Senate investigated these charges nearly twelve years later and found no corroborating evidence or documentation that the deal had taken place. Notable figures assured the public that the exchange did occur, like then-Iranian President Abulhassan Banisadr, naval intelligence officer Gary Sick, and former Reagan White House analyst Barbara Honegger.

Presidential Election of 2012, Obama v. Romney:

Sometimes, October surprises arise organically — like in 2012 with the emergence of Hurricane Sandy. Many in the media viewed this as constituting an influential factor because President Obama’s response as President could make or break his chances at re-election.

A more deliberate, less natural surprise was when the left-leaning news organization Mother Jones released an audio clip of Mitt Romney making his infamous 47% of Americans comment. In a speech to wealthy donors, he said that President Obama was starting off with roughly 47% of the Americans that do not pay federal income taxes, and that those people would never be persuaded to vote for him.

Mitt Romney is recorded saying, “those [47% of] Americans believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that’s an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what.”

Although the release of this audio-clip was released on September 17th, there was speculation that the effects of this remark went all the way to Election Day. Further, there was speculation that Mother Jones held on to the clip so that it could be released closer to Election Day, although they deny this notion and state it was withheld pending negotiations with the source.

Presidential Election of 2016, Clinton v. Trump:

Lastly, who can forget the two rather massively covered October surprises in the 2016 election?

On October 7th, The Washington Post released the Access Hollywood tape in which presidential candidate Donald Trump detailed the ways he could touch women due to his celebrity status. The video, from 2005, was prompted by a conversation with television host Billy Bush. Trump captivated the nation with these comments, and he lost major Republican endorsements due to the heavy coverage and public outrage. Even prominent supporters of Trump, like Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, and Mike Pence expressed their disapproval of his comments.

A political communications study found that the release of this tape “modestly, though significantly, reduced support for Donald Trump during the 2016 campaign. Surprisingly, these effects were similar among men and women; but they were noticeably larger among Republicans compared to Democrats.”

Then, just one week before Election Day on October 28th, FBI Director James Comey resurrected the Hillary Clinton email scandal. In a letter to Congress, Comey stated that he would be taking further investigative steps regarding Clinton’s private email server. Despite concerns by the DOJ that commenting on this ongoing investigation was not proper, Comey made the independent decision to amend comments he made months earlier to Congress which stated that the investigation was over.

Many describe this event to be detrimental to Clinton’s campaign. Re-entering the email scandal into the public discourse with so little time before Election Day inserted an ominous cloud of mismanagement and corruption over Clinton and her candidacy.

Presidential Election of 2020, Biden v. Trump?:

With less than two months before Election Day, we are officially in October surprise territory. Similar to the previous electoral examples, and the numerous others I omitted for the sake of brevity, it is all but certain that there will be news stories meant to make a lasting impact in the minds of voters.

Yet, I ask again, will it matter?

In the case of Trump, the American public has heard it all — from racial prejudice in his housing developments to the con-artistry of Trump University. From top-level Trump officials like Michael Flynn being arrested to nearly 200,000 Americans dead from coronavirus. From not releasing his tax returns to his impeachment by the U.S. House of Representatives which has all but faded from the public consciousness.

These stories are much larger than what most October surprises have constituted in recent years, but they barely move public opinion. Imagine Trump coming out during a press conference and saying, word for word, the 47% remarks which Romney was so aggressively penalized for? The media and general pubic wouldn't bat an eye.

Trump, in my view, is largely immune from the shock and awe that is traditionally able to follow a heavy news cycle before the election. Perhaps a story fresh enough, and outrageous enough, to capture the public eye for longer than two days may do damage, but I fear that is unlikely. A better strategy, more than focusing on just one more crazy story about the President, would be to offer a concise summary of his scandals and mismanagement up to this point. Remind the American public what has happened, since it is far too difficult for even reasonable observers to keep up.

Further, it seems that a genuine October surprise could adversely affect Biden’s candidacy, but that may be difficult to do as well. Even stories which may have usually helped Trump gain some traction can be overshadowed by the overwhelming fatigue felt by those wishing to vote out Trump. The good news for Biden is that the Republicans had a three decade head-start on crafting the Hillary Clinton narrative that made her so disliked — exacerbated by the last minute email investigation. They have no such lead on Biden, even with his extensive political career.

As a disclaimer, I do not mean to leave readers with the idea that neither candidate can do anything to win the election, or that their placement in the polls are somehow not subject to change anymore (they are). I am not arguing that the stories leading up to the election will play no role in the result, but that the effect will be less significant based on the volume of scandal the American public has encountered in recent years.

More than likely, the results of this election will be determined by an aggregate of all the stories Americans have encountered, not just one silver bullet near the end of campaigning. It will be the accumulation of all the feelings, grievances, and emotions toward the two major party candidates. Even still, it will be interesting to see how the campaigns use these last remaining weeks.