The 2024 presidential race has seen sufficient surprising occasions transpire in a number of brief months to fill a complete calendar yr, however that doesn’t imply there received’t be a much-talked about October shock looming within the closing weeks of the marketing campaign.
Every of the previous two presidential cycles have been marked by an October shock, together with the “Entry Hollywood” tape together with the Comey letter in 2016 after which questions round a laptop computer belonging to Hunter Biden in 2020.
Listed here are 5 potential October surprises that might emerge this yr.
The emergence of recent video or audio
Every of the final two presidential elections have been marked by the emergence of recent audio or video footage by information stories.
In 2016, it was the “Entry Hollywood” tape through which Trump was heard bragging about groping ladies, which almost ended his White Home bid that yr. In 2020, it was the Hunter Biden laptop computer that featured controversial pictures of President Biden’s son.
For Harris, the chance of recent audio or video coming to mild facilities round her past policy positions.
Information shops have been centered on a number of the insurance policies Harris backed throughout her 2020 presidential bid, when she stated she supported a ban on fracking and backed decriminalizing illegally crossing the border. Extra audio or video of her as a presidential candidate, prosecutor or senator may trigger new complications for her marketing campaign. She has distanced herself from these views through the 2024 marketing campaign.
Trump’s capacity to shock the final citizens has waned over the near-decade he’s spent within the political highlight with every incendiary remark he makes at rallies and on social media.
Even in 2016, Trump managed to shortly recuperate from the “Entry Hollywood” scandal in a matter of days.
However video and audio of closed-door remarks by Trump to donors, for instance, may create a firestorm or present fodder for the Harris marketing campaign, akin to when the previous president promised wealthy donors tax cuts in a possible second time period.
The importance of a harmful information report was on show final month when CNN reported on posts North Carolina gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson, who Trump endorsed, made on an internet pornography discussion board between 2008 and 2012, together with that he supported slavery and known as himself a “Black Nazi.”
A significant climate occasion
The devastation of Hurricane Helene in latest days was a major instance of how a major climate occasion may upend the marketing campaign within the coming weeks.
Helene ravaged swaths of Florida, Georgia and North Carolina, taking out crucial infrastructure and slicing off energy for thousands and thousands of individuals in these states. White Home homeland safety adviser Liz Sherwood-Randall informed reporters Monday as many as 600 individuals had been nonetheless unaccounted for.
The political impacts had been speedy: Harris cut short a west coast marketing campaign swing to return to Washington for a storm briefing. She is anticipated to tour storm harm within the coming days, whereas Trump visited Georgia to see the aftermath on Monday.
There’s additionally the likelihood that the storm harm may hinder early voting, significantly in North Carolina and Georgia, the place early in-person voting is about to start within the coming weeks. Each of these states are intently contested and are anticipated to assist decide the winner of November’s election.
Hurricane season lasts into November, leaving open the potential for one other main storm alongside the Gulf Coast. And White Home officers specifically have warned that local weather change has led to extra damaging, extra intense storms that might wreak havoc on the marketing campaign.
Extra political violence
One of many gravest potential October surprises could be violence concentrating on candidates, election staff, workers or different officers.
Trump has been on the middle of two tried assassinations in latest months, ratcheting up fears of political divisions turning to violence. He was grazed by a bullet at a July rally, and an alleged gunman camped out alongside the perimeter of one in all his golf membership’s in September earlier than a Secret Service agent fired at him.
A Virginia man was arrested in late July for allegedly making dying threats in opposition to Harris.
NBC Information reported in September that the FBI was investigating after election officers in at the least six states obtained suspicious packages.
“I’m most involved about vote counting and election judges and violence. There’s been a reasonably clear sample of threats about who will get to depend votes,” John Murphy, a professor on the College of Illinois who research political rhetoric, stated in a latest interview.
However calls to decrease the political temperature after every of these assassination makes an attempt have principally been futile, with Trump specifically ramping up the personal attacks on his opponents.
On Monday, the previous president blamed Democrats for Secret Service staffing points that compelled Trump to relocate a Saturday rally in Wisconsin.
One other Trump-Harris debate
Maybe one of many likeliest occasions that might shake-up the presidential race could be a second debate between Trump and Harris.
The 2 candidates squared off on stage on Sept. 10, however Trump has up to now declined to comply with a second debate, claiming he received his first debate with Harris and later suggesting it was too late for one more one as a result of early voting had already began.
Harris has repeatedly pushed for another debate with Trump in October. She has accepted an invitation for a CNN-hosted debate on Oct. 23.
However some Trump allies have urged him to rethink, and there’s a lingering sense that the previous president may nonetheless change his thoughts if he feels his ballot numbers may use a lift or he wants to alter the information cycle within the weeks earlier than Election Day.
“As of proper now that is the one debate that’s left on the calendar. President Trump has made it fairly clear the place he’s,” senior Trump adviser Jason Miller stated Monday. “There have been different alternatives that Kamala Harris may have joined President Trump for earlier debates.”
Broader conflict breaks out
Whereas home occasions are most probably to have essentially the most impression on the election, the chance of conflict breaking out overseas may even have critical ramifications on the marketing campaign.
There are vital issues about tensions within the Center East, the place Israel’s conflict with Hamas is approaching its one-year mark.
Individually, Israel decimated Hezbollah’s management with strikes over the previous week, whereas additionally killing lots of of civilians and forcing almost 1 million individuals from their properties in Lebanon.
Israel reportedly informed the White Home on Monday it may launch a restricted floor operation in Lebanon within the coming days, escalating fears of an all-out conflict between Israeli forces and Hezbollah, a chosen terrorist group.
Such a conflict may additional inflame tensions amongst Democrats specifically, because the occasion has been divided over the Biden administration’s assist for Israel over the previous yr regardless of its forces killing 1000’s of Palestinian civilians in Gaza in its conflict in opposition to Hamas.
It might additionally create a possible opening for Trump to go on offense on international coverage. Whereas Harris has argued Trump can’t be trusted to keep up alliances and that he has cozied as much as dictators, the previous president has pointed to conflicts in Ukraine and within the Center East to argue the world is much less protected than it was when he was in workplace.
