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You are here: Home / 2024 Campaign / When an October Surprise Doesn’t Surprise

When an October Surprise Doesn’t Surprise

October 6, 2024 at 11:11 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

John Heilemann: “One result of this utterly unimaginable, genuinely bonkers chain of events is that both the Harris and Trump campaigns, the press, and voters are already hyper-attuned to the outlandish craziness of this election year and have been conditioned, in a way, to consider stunning, unprecedented turns of events par for the course in 2024. Against the backdrop of what’s already happened in the presidential race, an October without an October surprise—or several October surprises—would be the only real surprise.”

“Thus both campaigns are buckled down, carefully planning rallies, media interviews, grinding it out with their ground games, each seemingly of the belief that they’re in the lead, not wanting to rock the boat. But, at the same time, everyone is on high alert, eyes peeled for the appearance of black swans, flash hurricanes, or other signs of ominous glitches in the matrix.”

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About Political Wire

goddard-bw-snapshotTaegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.

Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.

Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.

Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.

Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.

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