Only an ‘October Surprise’ can swing the presidential election

It remains to be seen whether or not President Biden remains the Democrats’ nominee for president, amid growing calls to replace him atop the ticket. But at this moment, the race is frozen in place. 

Indeed, Donald Trump’s lead in national polling — now sitting at 3 points (47 percent to 44 percent) per the RealClearPolitics polling average — has remained remarkably consistent for months. This is true even after Biden’s disastrous debate performance and the discontent it engendered among Democrats.  

Since last November, the race has been stubbornly rangebound, with Trump’s lead over Biden consistently within a 1 to 4-point range, per RealClearPolitics moving averages. 

Moreover, even if Vice President Kamala Harris were to replace Biden, polls show there would be no significant movement. Trump’s lead over Harris, sitting at 3 points (48 percent to 45 percent), is identical to the former president’s lead over Biden.  

Put another way, the debate — and the last 18 months of campaigning — did little to alter national polling in a race that is frankly stuck, due almost entirely to the fact that both Biden and Trump are so well known, and our country is extraordinarily polarized. 

What, then, could cause a decisive shift in Biden or Trump’s favor? Quite simply, the answer is an outside event. Or, as it’s otherwise known, an October Surprise. 

To that end, given that Biden’s and Trump’s strengths and weaknesses are familiar to voters, it is more likely that a truly pivotal October Surprise comes in the form of a foreign policy development that either drastically helps or harms Biden.  

For Biden, this might be the only way he can change a situation where he leads in only one of the 13 most recent major polls. 

Biden appears to recognize that an October Surprise, handled well, would be decisive. During Thursday’s press conference concluding the NATO summit, he spent much of the time on foreign policy, setting up for a breakthrough in either Asia, Europe, or the Middle East. 

In particular, the war between Israel and Hamas could end, potentially even as part of a larger regional peace deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia. That would be considerably more monumental than when Trump orchestrated the Abraham Accords in the final days before the 2020 election.

As the Washington Post reported on Wednesday, there appears to be a breakthrough on a temporary cease-fire in Gaza that may turn permanent. While this is no guarantee, if Biden were able to secure a stop in the fighting that lasted through the fall, it would be a significant boost for his embattled campaign.   

However, events could go the other way. The war could escalate with the outbreak of a true second front in Lebanon, given Hezbollah’s repeated attacks on Israel. If a full-scale war breaks out, particularly if Iran intervenes on behalf of Hezbollah, the U.S. may be drawn into a direct conflict with Iran and a significant war in the Middle East, for which Biden would be held responsible.

At the same time, events in Asia could quickly spiral out of control if China or even North Korea thinks it would face less resistance to an invasion of Taiwan or South Korea, respectively, under a weakened Biden than under Trump.  

All of this is to say that if there is a major geopolitical crisis, Biden will play an outsized role. If he rises to the occasion, it will do more to address concerns over his fitness than virtually any press conference or campaign rally ever could.  

Conversely, if Americans feel that Biden’s perceived weakness led to increased geopolitical chaos, it may be the nail in his campaign’s coffin. 

The first significant “October Surprise” that I remember came more than six decades ago. In October 1962, former President John F. Kennedy narrowly avoided what could have been a nuclear Holocaust by diffusing the Cuban Missile Crisis, giving Democrats momentum ahead of that year’s midterms. 

However, it is often hard to tell whether or not an October Surprise is truly a “game changer.” It is usually unclear how voters will react, regardless of what the event is. 

Most notably, the 2016 and 2020 elections had events that all could have been considered decisive October Surprises, yet only one is considered to have swayed an election. 

October 2016 saw two bombshells just days apart, with the release of the now infamous Access Hollywood tape featuring former President Donald Trump and then at the end of the month — 11 days before the election — then-FBI director James Comey informed Congress that the FBI was again looking into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server. 

As FiveThirtyEight noted shortly after the 2016 election, immediately before the Comey Letter, Clinton had a sizable 6 point lead over Trump. Within a week of its release, her lead had been cut in half. In the “average swing state,” Clinton’s edge declined from roughly 5 points to under 2 points in the same period. 

At the same time, the Access Hollywood tape — which may have assumed would be the decisive surprise — was relegated to the background.  

Similarly, in 2020, the Trump campaign surely hoped that the revelations surrounding Hunter Biden’s laptop would be the decisive shock when the story broke that October, yet it made no difference in the end. 

As the race stands right now, Trump is the clear favorite. Even if national polling shows a race that has moved little, swing state polling underscores that conclusion.  

Yet there are nearly four months before Americans head to the polls, which is an immense amount of time in politics.  

While it is no guarantee that there will be an October Surprise, history has shown that within the closing months of a presidential campaign, the power of incumbents to shape perceptions of themselves, their ability to manage significant events and, ultimately, American public opinion, cannot be minimized nor ignored. 

Douglas E. Schoen is a political consultant and the founder and partner at Schoen Cooperman Research. His latest book is “The End of Democracy? Russia and China on the Rise and America in Retreat.”