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The Political Season Has Arrived. Is an “October Surprise” imminent?
October 4, 2024 by Laura Heilenman · Leave a Comment
As election day draws near and our airwaves, mailboxes, and social media feeds fill with campaign chaos ad nauseam, it’s easy to feel like modern politics has hit a new low. But if you take a trip back through history’s newsstands, you’ll quickly find that late-stage campaign bombshells are an American tradition almost as old as the republic itself.
The political tactic we now call the “October Surprise” traces back nearly two centuries. On October 23, 1840, just weeks before the presidential election between Martin Van Buren and William Henry Harrison, The Globe published a explosive report detailing what many consider the original October Surprise. Federal prosecutors leveled sensational charges against Whig Party officials, accusing them of a “most stupendous and atrocious fraud” for allegedly paying out-of-state voters to cross lines and swing elections.
As shown in the snapshot below, the paper didn’t hold back on the drama, declaring in bold, scathing type: “MEN ARE IMPORTED AND CARRIED LIKE CATTLE FROM ONE PLACE TO ANOTHER. They are allowed to VOTE OVER AND OVER AGAIN, under changed names and personal disguises.” It turns out political mudslinging, voter fraud accusations, and last-minute campaign curveballs aren’t a byproduct of the digital age – they’ve been selling newspapers for nearly 200 years.
So as we brace ourselves for whatever last-minute revelations inevitably rain down upon us in the coming weeks, let’s keep a cool head and remember the age-old adage: there is truly nothing new under the sun.
