Is there still time for an ‘October surprise’?
A perennial phenomenon every election season is the “October surprise,” or some lesser version of the same: an event after Labor Day that, rather than boost or damage just one statewide or local candidate, changes the trajectory of elections nationwide. We can think of such events from past midterm and presidential election cycles. Some of these events accentuate the preexisting trends, as did the financial crisis in 2008 and the congressional page scandal in 2006. Others cut in favor of the party in power, such as the Brett Kavanaugh hearings in 2018, the Starr Report in 1998, or the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.
The sweeping powers of the presidency can give its occupant a number of options to change the conversation as elections approach, but that can be harder than it sounds. Perceptions and moods are mostly set by fall. This year, Donald Trump has one very large rabbit he could still pull out of his hat: a successful end to the war with Iran. But with early voting beginning as soon as the start of October in some jurisdictions, time is running short. And the practical realities of the Iran war are unlikely to cooperate.
Certainly, an end to the war would be a great political boon to Trump. The war is unpopular for a variety of reasons: some voters generally dislike foreign adventures, Americans lack patience for wars that drag on without visible progress toward victory, Trump has failed to explain what we’re fighting for and what victory would look like, and this war’s impact on fuel prices is felt by ordinary voters and directly undercuts one of Trump’s main reasons for being elected to a second term. Trump was struggling in the polls on the issue of the cost of living for almost a year before the war started, but the war has exacerbated that problem.
Democrats, for now, can exploit voter discontent with the war. But doing so would be much harder if voters believed that the war was over. Americans have famously short memories when rewarding or punishing foreign policy decisions if they think those events are finished and done with. There are, however, even short-term political risks in walking away from Iran without looking like a winner. Even if voters are less fired up by a war that’s over, they will not be moved by a president who looks like a loser. Nor are they as likely to conclude that the economic pain is over or the conflict finally resolved if Trump walks away with Iran still perceived to be holding hostage the Strait of Hormuz and the world oil supply.
The difficulty for Trump is twofold. First, the practical military and geopolitical realities of the war don’t lend themselves to a swift resolution. Victories should be visible, not just a matter of what is said by the president or military or intelligence professionals (the latter never being in short supply on both sides of any question). It is possible, and in many cases preferable, for the United States to end the conflict unilaterally or by implicit agreement rather than by any sort of deal that grants benefits to the Iranian regime. But reaching a status quo that can be defined plausibly as a success is likely to take time. Reopening the strait, for example, has already been done to some extent — but so long as getting ships through the strait requires active U.S. assistance and precludes openly visible transit, we’re not really out of the war in a way that voters can see. Likewise, anything we get out of strangulating economic sanctions on Iran is unlikely to come swiftly.
The second problem is a chronic one: Americans don’t trust what Trump tells them, or what an administration that answers to Trump tells them. Trump won two national elections because people trust him in some ways. They trust him to be tough on the border and illegal immigration. They trust him, not always correctly, to drive hard bargains. They trust him to disregard cant, norms, and conventional wisdom when these work to subordinate American interests to wider global interests. Until he damaged it with his overreaching tariff frenzy, they trusted him to deliver prosperity. But even many people who vote for Trump have always understood that he’s a blowhard and a BS artist (indeed, the Michelangelo of BS) who will always put the best spin for himself on anything. That bit him badly during Covid, when there was no enemy to fight and people needed a leader they could trust to be straight with them. And it’s bad news in wartime, when the same trustworthiness is needed.
All of this means that the rabbit is likely to stay stuck in the hat through Election Day. Trump can probably get out of this looking like a winner only if the Iranians fold — and they are never inclined to do that, even if a purely rational reading of the American electoral situation would teach them that Trump will never be more dangerous or unconstrained than in the two months between getting a midterm electoral pasting and having to deal with a newly elected Democratic Congress.