Election Impact: Let’s Talk about Election Surprises
October 2024
I’d be surprised if there weren’t a surprise in the final weeks of this election cycle. But if I knew what the surprise was going to be, then it wouldn’t be a surprise.
Despite the obvious uncertainty surrounding surprises, it’s worth exploring them, particularly in an election cycle as close and tumultuous as this one.
First of all, it’s important to make a distinction between two different kinds of surprises: events that take place before the election that could affect results and unexpected results themselves. Because those aren’t the same thing.
Before overreacting to a major upcoming and unknown event, remember that this has been a very stable race. Any polling chart, such as the FiveThirtyEight national polling average, essentially shows two parallel lines representing support for Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump.
According to FiveThirtyEight, Harris’ narrow advantage on Oct. 20 (1.8 points) is about a point or so less than most of the fall but the same as it was in early August. That means the vast majority of Americans have already made up their minds about who they plan to vote for. And if their support hasn’t wavered by now, it’s unlikely to change in the final days.
A core piece of that dynamic is Trump’s Teflon support. More than 80 indictments in four separate cases, including 34 felony convictions, didn’t sink his candidacy. Any number of authoritarian or incoherent statements, which would have sunk anyone else, haven’t damaged his standing in the race. In any other world, the 180-page brief released last week detailing specific allegations of election interference would qualify as an October surprise, yet it barely made the news. On the other hand, Trump didn’t receive any noticeable sympathy bump after two assassination attempts.
Trump is consistently held to a different standard. He has desensitized the media to the typically outrageous. And he is given the benefit of the doubt because he’s still viewed as a political outsider rather than a politician, which appears to be the unforgivable sin to a majority of voters. So, once again, it’s hard to see how a future event will change his support dramatically in either direction.
Other factors are also making a game-changing event unlikely. The proliferation of early voting and voting by mail mutes the impact of a late development because millions of votes will have already been cast and unchangeable as we creep closer to Nov. 5.
Finally, we can’t forget that it’s already past mid-October and there’s just two weeks before Election Day. So time is literally running out.
But what results could surprise on Election Day?
First it would be helpful to define an election “surprise.”
If pre-election polling shows Harris with a narrow advantage, a Trump victory does not qualify as a surprise. Or if Democratic Rep. Colin Allred wins the Texas Senate race, currently rated as Lean Republican, it would qualify as an upset, but not a surprise. GOP Sen. Deb Fischer losing reelection in Nebraska would have qualified as a surprise earlier in the cycle, but if independent Dan Osborn wins in November, it wouldn’t qualify since the race has received plenty of attention and spending in the past few weeks.
An election surprise is better defined as a race rated as Solid for one party going to the other party. Those can be difficult to identify because of a lack of data rather than an incorrect read of the data. Maybe an incumbent thinks they are coasting to reelection and doesn’t see the need to do any polling and the opposing party doesn’t think the seat is within reach (because the district or state is too partisan), so strategists don’t bother conducting a poll to see if there’s an opportunity.
So when fewer than 100 of the 469 House and Senate races are actively monitored by campaign strategists and nonpartisan analysts, there are hundreds of places for a surprise to manifest itself. And it’s not feasible to poll and monitor all of the Solid races in search of a single surprise. With that ratio of monitored to unmonitored races, I’m surprised when there’s not a surprise.
One race rated as Solid has been won by the other party in four of the past nine cycles. But that means more than 3,000 races over the same span performed as expected.
Rather than searching for a black swan event that will alter the trajectory of the cycle, it’s probably best to understand that if these elections are as close as they appear to be, a minor shift in one direction could result in a large number of wins by one party. That might be a surprise to some folks, but it won’t be to people paying attention.
Nathan L. Gonzales is a senior political analyst for the Public Affairs Council and editor of Inside Elections, a nonpartisan newsletter with a subscription package designed to boost PACs with a regular newsletter and exclusive conference call. You can also hear more on the Inside Elections Podcast. His email address is [email protected].
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An election surprise is better defined as a race rated as Solid for one party going to the other party.
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