What Could Be the October Surprise in a Political Season of Surprises?

The news alert came through around 4 p.m. on the first Friday of October 2016 — one month before the presidential election. The Washington Post was in possession of an unaired video showing Donald Trump bragging in extremely lewd terms about kissing and groping women. The story of what became known as the “Access Hollywood tape” was a quintessential October Surprise, but it wasn’t the only one that emerged that month, or even that day.

Hours before the Access Hollywood story broke, Wikileaks began a two-month campaign of releasing a slow drip of hacked emails from Hillary Clinton’s campaign. Those emails included recordings of speeches Clinton gave to Wall Street banks for high fees, the revelation that a debate question was leaked to her in advance by a CNN commentator and a contradictory stance on trade deals from the one she promoted on the campaign trail.

Clinton would go on to lose that election by a hair, while Trump would win — in spite of the revelations made public on the 7th, and with the help of an even bigger October Surprise that came weeks later, in the final days of the campaign: a letter that then-FBI Director James Comey sent to Congress informing lawmakers his agency had “learned of the existence of emails that appear to be pertinent to the investigation” into the private email server Clinton used as secretary of state. Clinton, and many Democrats, say that letter is single-handedly responsible for costing her the 2016 election.

For decades, presidential campaigns and their political operatives have watched for an October Surprise, a major, narrative-changing piece of news that could upend the race in its final leg. History has shown that candidates have been right to anticipate a late game changer, but in an election cycle that has brought nothing but surprises, what is left to drastically alter the contest between Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris?

Up until June, it seemed like the 2024 election was political deja vu. The rematch between Trump and President Joe Biden was dull. Both suffered from underwater approval ratings. They were stalling in the polls. Neither seemed to enthuse voters, who regularly told pollsters they would prefer someone — anyone — different from the two elderly men running for their second White House terms.