Is the upcoming US election headed for an ‘October Surprise’?

Clinton attributed her loss to Trump in part to “the crazy story” about her “running a child trafficking operation out of a basement of a pizzeria”. She blamed pro-Trump news media outlets for amplifying such false stories.

Reagan’s cynical ploy

The term refers to any event that could dramatically change the course of the election at the very last moment. The term was coined by William Casey, the campaign manager to Ronald Reagan during the latter’s successful bid for presidency in 1980.

The story goes like this. After the Islamic Revolution of 1979, the US granted exile to Mohammad Reza Pahalvi, the last Shah of Iran who had been removed by the revolutionaries. Angry Iranians, however, wanted him back. In November 1979, a group of armed Iranian students took 53 American diplomats hostage demanding the deportation of the deposed Shah in return.

This ended up being a major issue during the election, and Reagan feared that the incumbent Jimmy Carter would win the election based on a last-minute deal with Iran for the release of the hostages. Casey, thus, repeatedly spoke about an “October Surprise” that Carter would spring — a strategy to make voters believe that any last minute positive news on the Iran front was but a cynical ploy by Carter to secure votes.

As things turned out, the hostages were freed on January 20, 1981 — about 20 minutes after Reagan was sworn in as President. According to some accounts, this was after Reagan’s camp negotiated an arms-for-hostages deal with Iran and colluded with the new Islamic regime to delay the release of hostages until after the elections.

Former Iran President Abolhassan Banisadr, who presided over much of the hostage crisis, wrote in his book, My Turn to Speak: Iran, the Revolution & Secret Deals with the US, that he had “proof of contacts between Khomeini and the supporters of Ronald Reagan as early as the spring of 1980”.

This, many argued, was crucial for Reagan’s election victory as it damaged Carter’s standing, and allowed the Republican to bash him for being unable to resolve the hostage crisis. Although dismissed in the 1980s, further evidence of the Reagan campaign’s collusion has since emerged. In March 2023, Senior Republican politician Ben Barnes told The New York Times that he had unwittingly been part of a 1980 tour of the Middle East “to deliver a blunt message to be passed to Iran: Don’t release the hostages before the election. Mr. Reagan will win and give you a better deal.”

3 October Surprises that could up-end the 2024 election

Oscar Winberg, a research expert in US politics at Finland’s Turku Institute for Advanced Studies, told France24 on Monday (September 30) that three kinds of events could trigger an October Surprise situation: an international diplomatic event, a new political scandal arising from suppressed information from the past, or a large-scale domestic news event.

Escalation in Israel’s war in the Middle East: Iran’s missile strikes in Israel on Tuesday (October 1) marked a significant escalation in the year-long crisis that has plagued the region. This along with Israel’s offensive into Lebanon, along with the ongoing war in Palestine, present multiple challenges to the US which is allied with Israel but wary of being pulled into a conflict in the Middle East.

US Port strike: Around 45,000 dockworkers from the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) in 36 ports from Maine to Texas commenced an indefinite strike on Tuesday in a labour dispute against their employer, United States Maritime Alliance (USMX). The impact is already being felt: key ocean shipping routes have been shut down. The protesting workers are demanding a 77 per cent hike in wages over six years and a ban on automation, given the industry’s massive profits during the pandemic.

Increased political violence: The run-up to the 2024 election has seen two assassination attempts on Republican candidate, Donald Trump. There are fears that similar violence stemming from political divisions against either candidate, election workers or even judges could be witnessed in the weeks ahead.