With the 2024 presidential race heating up, the idea of an ‘October Surprise’ is back in the spotlight with a sell point that the month has the power to change the tides of therace to the White House. In a recent chat with CNN’s Michael Smerconish, presidential historian Allan Lichtman weighed in on this phenomenon and its relevance to his earlier prediction.
Known for his impressive track record of accurately forecasting presidential winners since 1984, Lichtman is confident that any unexpected developments in the coming weeks won’t change the election result which will be in favour of Kamala Harris.
Could an ‘October surprise’ influence the election outcome?
“One of the greatest myths of American politics is the October surprise,” Lichtman told CNN. “I have never changed my prediction in response to an October surprise,” he emphasized. The host noted that, in over 40 years, the polling ‘Nostradamus’ has never once altered his forecast.
Lichtman confidently declares that no last-minute twists will shake his prediction that Kamala Harris will triumph over Donald Trump becoming America’s first female president.
The Political historian who uses a unique model based on 13 key factors to make his forecasts added, ‘The keys gauged the big picture of incumbent governance in strength and don’t sway by the events of the campaign.”
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What is an October surprise?
Typically, an October surprise refers to a bombshell news event that emerges in the days leading up to the traditionally held November presidential elections.
The term became popular in in 1980 during Jimmy Carter’s presidency when he struggled to secure the release of American hostages in Iran. Since then, various incidents in October, often seen as last-minute disruptions, have been labeled as October Surprises.
For example, back in 1992, when George H.W. Bush was running for a second term, his campaign got a big blow when his former defense secretary, Caspar Weinberger, got caught up in the Iran-Contra scandal.
Past examples include the reopening of the federal investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails. In 2016, everyone was talking about the fallout from Donald Trump’s Access Hollywood tape, and then in 2020 the controversy surrounding Hunter Biden’s laptop.
Such events often seem designed to sway the election’s outcome. Currently, Trump and Harris find themselves in a fierce electoral battle, with razor-thin margins in key swing states making the competition even more intense.
Trump may ‘never return to the White House’
Trump made a triumphant return to Butler, Pennsylvania—where he was previously the target of an assassination attempt in July. However, historian Allan Lichtman earlier suggested he may never return to the White House again. In a video shared by The New York Times, Lichtman laid out his predictions using his 13 “keys,” which are basically true or false questions to check how well the current party is doing.
He earlier said that eight of these keys are in favor of Kamala Harris, while only three are for Donald Trump. Lichtman mentioned that the Biden team’s approach to foreign affairs, especially their involvement in the Gaza conflict, is still unclear and could change the election results, possibly flipping some of these keys. But, even if both the foreign affairs keys end up being bad, Lichtman believes Trump wouldn’t have enough support to win back the White House.
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On the other hand, the competition is extremely tight in crucial battleground states, where neither candidate has a lead greater than three percentage points in any of the seven states, as reported by a New York Times poll. At present, a national polling average shows Harris at 49%, while Trump trails closely behind at 47%.