The electrocardiogram of the American presidential campaign will have shown numerous frequency peaks. But none will have been important enough to win the election. It’s been half the month, and still no “October surprise”, these events which take the candidates out of steam in the last meters of the race for the White House. Corruption cases, state lies, hostage taking, attacks, climate disasters, financial crises, and scandals of all kinds. The “October surprise” can take a plethora of forms.
The expression dates back to the early 1980s, and was first used publicly by William Casey, the campaign manager of then-candidate Ronald Reagan. Grand Old Party (GOP). “I’m afraid Jimmy Carter has an October surprise in store for us,” William Casey told the press. We are in the summer of 1979. The Republican camp fears that the President of the United States, candidate for re-election, will wait until the very end of the campaign to release the 52 hostages held for a year by Iran. A diplomatic success which would have been perceived by public opinion as a masterstroke, and could have created a halo effect around the outgoing president capable of ensuring his victory.
But the release having only been accepted by the mullahs’ regime at the beginning of 1980, Jimmy Carter was not able to benefit from such a state of grace in the last moments of the campaign. Ultimately, it was Ronald Reagan who took up residence in the Oval Office. However, it was not until 2004 and the unpublished video of Osama Bin Laden that a candidate – John Kerry in this case – publicly held an October surprise responsible for his defeat. “If it has never been scientifically established that the Democratic candidate lost because of this October surprise“, it is true that the attacks tend to push voters to vote for the conservative party”, concedes Françoise Coste, professor of American civilization at the University of Toulouse.
The loss of influence ofOctober surprise
However, is this precedent sufficient to draw the following conclusion: would an attack carried out on the eve of the election be enough to guarantee the election of Donald Trump? According to Lauric Henneton, lecturer at Versailles St-Quentin-en-Yvelines University, not necessarily. “In 2017, an attack took place a few days before an election in England, and the Conservative party, which thought it would expand its majority, ultimately lost it,” he points out. This, for a simple reason. In societies in which polarization tends to increase, events which once had the effect of real electroshocks see their impact weaken.
Double assassination attempt against Donald Trump, withdrawal of Joe Biden from the race for the White House, extreme weather phenomena with the arrival in early October of hurricanes Helene and Milton. This, without counting the dockers’ strike. As numerous and significant as they are, the events which have punctuated the American presidential campaign in recent months have so far failed to tip the balance to one side or the other. “For several years, we have entered into a sort of permanent campaign: stink balls and revelations are made non-stop and above all, do not wait for the last weeks of the campaign to be drawn,” deciphers Françoise Coste.
The primacy of the partisan reflex
Thus, although relevant until the beginning of the 2010s, the notion ofOctober surprise seems outdated due to the triple combined effect of the smoothing of time, the polarization of American society, but also the crisis of distrust in information. “We have reached such a degree of polarization that voters are stuck with their feet firmly in their camp, Françoise Coste has observed for three presidential elections. If a scandal breaks out tomorrow, there is very little chance that voters will change their vote, because the partisan reflex takes precedence over the comparative analysis of programs.”
In addition, a disconnect between reality and voters’ perception of events seems to have been noted over the last ten years, fueled by growing skepticism towards state institutions, political oppositions and the traditional press. “If a video of Donald Trump dancing at a neo-Nazi party comes out on social media or in the media, chances are his supporters won’t give it any credence, they’ll just wave it off as it is a video rigged by artificial intelligence, or a set-up by the Democratic camp,” estimates specialist Lauric Henneton.
Trump, “the untouchable”
More generally, many observers agree on the impermeability of the Republican candidate vis-à-vis the October surprise. “Whatever Donald Trump does, it will not be enough to demobilize his electorate,” assures Anne Deysine, professor emeritus at Paris-Nanterre University, jurist and Americanist, author of the book The United States and democracy (ed. L’Harmattan). Just go back to 2016 and his filthy remarks against women, which had little impact on the vote since he was elected against Hillary Clinton.
Especially since unlike the billionaire, the Democratic candidate at the time benefited from significantly less support within her electorate. “The email affair weighed much more on the vote because Hillary Clinton was very unpopular in the United States,” recalls Lauric Henneton. Reason why this October surprise could have cost the former senator her election, “especially since the vote was very, very close”, insists Françoise Coste. Also, the less the candidate succeeds in generating strong support from his electorate, the greater his chances of seeing his candidacy crumble. Kamala Harris, who during her four years as vice-president suffered from a clear popularity deficit, would she survive a October surprise ? Nothing is less certain.
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