Five possible October surprises

It’s October — brace yourself for some surprises. 

In the final month of campaigning, the long knives always come out, the most damning opposition research gets released, and candidates look to scare voters away from their opponents. 

{mosads}And almost every election cycle, a major world event or an ill-advised candidate comment ends up shifting the playing field, to everyone’s surprise.

October surprises have been happening earlier every year, as campaigns have gotten longer, early voting periods have expanded and trackers following every candidate have been gathering video for months, highlighting gaffes as they happen.

“Both sides are likely to get out whatever remaining opposition research still exists in key states,” said Republican strategist Brian Walsh, who’s experienced both the highs and lows of October surprises. 

“But it’s hard to predict. That’s why they’re surprises,” said Walsh, who was communications director for the National Republican Senatorial Committee in 2010 and 2012. 

Every election year features a late-breaking shocker or two. Here’s some unexpected things to expect in the next month. 

National security crises

A late-developing crisis abroad — or a national emergency at home — can have an outsized impact on the focus and tenor of midterm campaigns. 

This year, the October surprise might have come early, though. Threats from the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), beheadings of American journalists and the chaos in the Middle East dominating headlines led to military action in Syria and Iraq. The vote to authorize arming Syrian rebels to fight ISIS was one of the final ones taken by Congress before it left for the fall campaign.

The fight against ISIS is still developing, leading to plenty of uncertainty. A terrorist attack at home or chaos abroad is impossible to plan for and could have a huge electoral impact, like the Iranian hostage crisis had on President Jimmy Carter’s 1980 reelection hopes.

Gaffes

There’s no easier way to torpedo your chances than by saying something stupid. In recent years, plenty of candidates have tripped over themselves during late debates or said controversial things privately that surfaced on video in the fall.

Former Indiana state Treasurer Richard Mourdock’s (R) comments during a late October debate that pregnancies caused by rape are “ something God intended” sunk his 2012 Senate campaign.

GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney’s infamous “47 percent” comment surfaced in mid-September 2012 and doomed his campaign going forward. In September 2010, liberal comedian Bill Maher played a 1999 clip of Delaware Senate nominee Christine O’Donnell saying she’d “dabbled in witchcraft,” leading to her infamous “I’m not a witch” ad in early October.

Plenty of gaffes have already happened this cycle, with Rep. Bruce Braley’s (D-Iowa) “farmer from Iowa” comments reshaping his Senate race, and other candidates sticking their feet in their mouths along the way. More could still happen — and with just over a month until the elections, they won’t have time to fade.

Opposition Research Dumps

Expect the classic “October surprise” to crop up in tight races nationwide: the last-minute tidbit of news or scandal breaking at just the right moment, and just salacious and damaging enough to sway the race in one direction.

Republicans were effectively handed a seat in Montana, when it was revealed this summer that appointed Sen. John Walsh (D) heavily plagiarized his master’s degree thesis, leading him to decide against running for a full term.

A potential game-changer in the North Carolina Senate race came out this week, when reports revealed that Sen. Kay Hagan’s (D-N.C.) husband’s company received grants from the federal stimulus package she voted for, news Republicans have hammered on hard. Democrats are firing back with evidence North Carolina House Speaker Thom Tillis (R) also benefitted financially from the stimulus. 

Both stories have likely been sitting in opposition researchers’ files for months waiting to be released just ahead of Nov. 4 for maximum effect.

Republicans are promising devastating details could still come out about Kansas independent Senate candidate Greg Orman’s business background. And both sides have trackers on the trail and researchers combing through campaign documents and candidates’ public records in search of the nugget that could implode a campaign.

Jesse Lehrich, a spokesman for the Democratic opposition research firm American Bridge, promised as much.

“In campaigns and especially at the eleventh hour, anything can happen. That’s why American Bridge has dozens of trackers and researchers focused on top-tier races around the country, because when a Republican slips up and tells the truth about their extreme agenda, we’ll be there to catch it,” he said.

Spending blitzes

In 2010, House Democrats were shocked by a late flood of outside spending from conservative groups. Caught unprepared, many who didn’t expect to face a real race were swept out of office before they’d even blinked.

Democrats vowed after those elections to never let outside groups outspend them by such wide margins, and they have ramped up with super-PACs and dark-money groups of their own, evening the playing field. But that means there’s plenty of money to target a race that shows late promise.

Airtime is very expensive and hard to come by in most competitive Senate and House districts at this point. But a late injection of outside cash from a group with unlimited resources or a deep-pocketed billionaire could put a House or Senate race on the map faster than used to be possible, as recent spending by outside groups in House districts in Maine and Nebraska illustrates.

Dropping a million dollars or more into heavily rural states or districts in the last week or two of a campaign could be enough to unexpectedly turn the tide in one direction or another, or seize on a late surge of momentum shown by an underdog candidate.  

Scandals

Officials behaving badly can ruin their careers and hurt their colleagues in the process if the scandals are bad enough and close enough to Election Day.

In September 2006, Rep. Mark Foley (R-Fla.), and the emails and texts he sent soliciting underage congressional pages blew up on House GOP leadership and turned a bad year into a disaster for the Republicans. They lost control of the House and Senate.

Other scandals over the years have been disastrous for one or both parties, from the House bank scandal to Abscam to Jack Abramoff. The closer to the elections, the worse they can be for candidates.

This story was last updated at 3:15 p.m.