The “October surprise” came in November with a poll showing there could be one more state on the battlefield than anyone expected.
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris.
(Kamil Krzyczynski and Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP/XGTY)
The “October surprise” took place this year in November, on the Saturday evening before election day. That’s when Des Moines Registerhighly valued Iowa Poll announced that Democrat Kamala Harris had opened up a narrow lead over Republican Donald Trump in the Hawkeye state. Political scientists were shocked not only in Iowa, but throughout the country.
Iowa shouldn’t have been “in the game,” as pundits put it.
But maybe it is.
If so, maybe it’s all figured out.
Or maybe not.
The 2024 election has proven more difficult than any contest in modern American history. But it ends with hints rather than certainty. This makes it something special.
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Most presidential elections end with a clear leader and a sense of how things will turn out. The same is true of the battle for control of the US House and Senate. Parties, especially those that are losing in the calculations, may not like that one side is claiming leadership. But this is usually the case.
No one was surprised when Lyndon Johnson defeated Barry Goldwater in 1964, when Richard Nixon defeated George McGovern in 1972, when Ronald Reagan defeated Walter Mondale in 1984, when Bill Clinton defeated Bob Dole in 1996, or when Barack Obama defeated John McCain in 2008. .
But this year everything is different. A lot of people will be surprised – on both sides of the aisle.
That’s because everything is down to the wire.
Of the last 10 national polls of the presidential race released between Halloween and the day before the election, four were tied. Three put Garris ahead. Three increased Trump’s lead.
Polls show all of the battleground states are within the margin of error — even as Wisconsin and Michigan have leaned toward Harris and Arizona toward Trump. It looked like the narrowly Democratic Senate might lean Republican, while the narrowly Republican House might lean Democratic.
Don’t like surveys? That’s cool. Look at the mass rallies in support of Harris and Trump, even as his crowds seemed to thin out as the former president waxed lyrical about how he wasn’t really a Nazi or languidly danced to the Village People’s “YMCA.” In battleground states and states with Senate seats at stake, negative TV ads clogged the airwaves, partisan mailmen filled mailboxes, and astute political observers were forced to debate whether they saw yard signs in unexpected places.
Anxiety prevailed, because there was not enough evidence of real movement in one direction.
Then came the Iowa poll, the surprise that came after October was done.
There have been many unexpected developments this election cycle. But perhaps nothing could reframe the 2024 presidential race like the prospect of a new state on the battlefield. The Iowa State Survey suggested that one was found on the banks of the Mississippi River and in the farm fields extending west of it.
A competitive state that has tilted heavily Republican in recent years, Iowa gave Trump a nearly 10-point victory over Hillary Clinton in 2016 and a comfortable 8-point victory over Joe Biden in 2020. When Biden was still in this year’s race, the incumbent trailed Trump by a staggering 18 points in an early June poll. And while Harris Biden’s replacement certainly energized Democrats, neither campaign made the state a priority.
But there was J. Anne Seltzer, a widely respected sociologist whose Iowa polls have picked up the last three presidential elections, as well as several gubernatorial and US senatorial elections, with remarkable accuracy. The Seltzer poll shows that Harris could return the state, which supported Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012, to the Democrats. In fact, Seltzer has been following Harris’ progress in the state since at least September, when a Sign up The poll showed a rapidly narrowing race. What changed was that it suddenly seemed like a vice president might have the momentum to run a state where she wasn’t even considered a contender.
Can it happen? We’ll see tonight.
Perhaps, as some have suggested, there is a hidden Harris vote that will show up not only in Iowa, but in many other states as well. If that’s the case, then the vice president could pull off an unexpectedly comfortable victory, like Ronald Reagan did in 1980. Perhaps, as Seltzer and some other pollsters have argued, there is a significant late move by older women and independents in a Democratic direction.
Harris’ addition of Minnesota Gov. Tim Waltz to the ticket may have swayed neighboring states like Iowa and key battleground states Wisconsin. Walz, who was born and raised in Nebraska, certainly appears to have helped the Democrats in that state, where the party looks set to pick up electoral votes and a congressional seat in the Omaha district. It might not lead to a bigger-than-expected national victory for Democrats, but it could put them in good position in a region where they need to do well to win the presidency, hold the Senate and take the House.
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It may be that Iowans who haven’t seen all the heavy-handed attack ads from the Trump camp were able to form an accurate impression of Harris based on her successful debates with Trump, her media appearances on non-traditional platforms and a campaign that promises America can “turn the page politics of division.” And it may be that Trump helped Harris make his case for the need for a course correction — with his increasingly heated talk of enemy lists and violent “retaliation.”
And it may be that even capable sociologists like Seltzer will no longer be able to study a country as deeply divided and politically unstable as the United States.
In any case, the Iowa numbers clearly rattled Trump, who was so concerned about losing six electoral votes that he reduced Iowa to a farm state stereotype and declared on Truth Social: “No president has done more for FARMERS and the Great State of Iowa than Donald J. Trump. In fact, it’s not even close! All the polls, except for one heavily Democratic-leaning Trump-hater who last time called it flat-out wrong, have me strong. I LOVE FARMERS AND THEY LOVE ME.”
Trump was still on the attack at a campaign rally on Sunday, announcing. “We have all this crap going on with the press, fake stuff and fake polls.”
“The polls are as corrupt as some of the writers,” the former president said, pointing to the media podium. Trump has even argued that polls showing him losing where he is expected to win should be “illegal” because they are a form of “suppression” that prevents his supporters from getting out to the polls.
This is poor analysis of Trump on every level. Selzer’s has done many polls over the years that have put Republicans ahead. Seltzer called it right for Trump in 2016 and 2020. And far from suppressing turnout, close races usually increase it.
But the outburst showed just how scared Trump is at the end of a race he was once convinced — when he was running against Biden — that he would win.
While Trump’s 2024 bid was marked by chaos and menace, Harris opted for competence and at least a modicum of joy, culminating in super rallies featuring everyone from Beyoncé and Cardi B to the Clintons and Obamas, as well as the gorgeous SNL appearance.
This kept her competitive from the start. The battleground states — Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia, Nevada and Arizona — remained competitive until Election Day. The only difference is that we have to watch Iowa tonight.
We cannot retreat
We now face a second Trump presidency.
There is nothing to lose. We must use our fears, our grief, and yes, our anger to oppose the dangerous policies that Donald Trump is unleashing on our country. We rededicate ourselves to our role as principled and honest journalists and authors.
Today we are also preparing for the future struggle. It will require a fearless spirit, an informed mind, wise analysis and humane resistance. We are faced with the adoption of Project 2025, a far-right Supreme Court, political authoritarianism, rising inequality and record homelessness, a looming climate crisis and conflicts abroad. Nation will expose and propose, develop investigative reporting and act together as a community to preserve hope and opportunity. NationThe work will continue — as it has in good times and bad — to develop alternative ideas and visions, to deepen our mission of truth-telling and in-depth reporting, and to expand solidarity in a divided nation.
Armed with 160 years of courageous independent journalism, our mandate remains the same today as it was when the Abolitionists were founded Nation— to defend the principles of democracy and freedom, to serve as a beacon in the darkest days of resistance, and to see and fight for a bright future.
The day is dark, the forces are building tenaciously, but it’s too late Nation editorial board member Toni Morrison wrote “No! This is just the time when artists go to work. No time for despair, no room for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we make language. This is how civilizations heal.”
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Katrina Vanden Heuvel
Editorial Director and Publisher, Nation
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