The 'October Surprise,' Explained: History Repeats with Late-Campaign Controversies Involving Oz and Walker

Two so-called October surprises have already threatened to upend Republican Senate campaigns in recent days

Dr. Oz, Herschel Walker
Dr. Oz (left), Herschel Walker. Photo: Roy Rochlin/Getty; RNC via Getty

October surprises came right on cue this midterm election cycle, as troubling headlines about Republican Senate candidates Dr. Mehmet Oz and Herschel Walker broke earlier this week. With only a month till Election Day, it remains to be seen exactly how the scandals will affect the candidates, but the buzz shows no sign of abating.

Last-minute campaign surprises are nothing new. Some quickly fade out of voters' memory while others tarnish the reputations of lawmakers for years to come.

Below, a roundup of past and present headline-making October surprises — and how the candidates impacted fared in their elections.

Herschel Walker
Nathan Posner/Shutterstock

Oct. 2022: Herschel Walker's Son Speaks Out After Abortion Allegations Surface

Earlier this week The Daily Beast reported the allegation that Walker, who is outspokenly anti-choice, paid for a woman to abort his child back in 2009 — a claim he vehemently denied, telling Fox News' Sean Hannity in a Monday interview he had "no idea" who the woman making the accusation was. On Wednesday, the Beast was back with a new report, this time alleging that not only did Walker know the woman, he has a child with her.

The ongoing story has sparked backlash not just from political pundits, but from Walker's own son, right-wing social media personality Christian Walker, who posted a series of tweets and videos suggesting his father should not be trusted.

"I know my mom and I would really appreciate if my father Herschel Walker stopped lying and making a mockery of us," Christian wrote on Twitter Monday night. (Christian's mother is Cindy DeAngelis Grossman, who is no longer married to Walker.)

He continued the tirade against Walker, claiming, "You're not a 'family man' when you left us to bang a bunch of women, threatened to kill us, and had us move over 6 times in 6 months running from your violence."

Polls conducted after the stories dropped suggest they've dealt a blow to Walker's campaign. One B-rated poll conducted by InsiderAdvantage on Tuesday showed Democrat Rev. Raphael Warnock leading Walker 47% to 44%, which placed Walker within the margin of error. But an A-rated poll conducted by SurveyUSA over the past five days put Warnock 12% ahead.

Republican U.S. Senate candidate Mehmet Oz holds a rally in the Tunkhanock Triton Hose Co fire station in Tunkhanock, Pa., on Thursday, August 18, 2022.
Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty

Oct. 2022: Dr. Oz Faces Claims About Cruel Experiments on Dogs

Also earlier this week, TV personality turned Republican Senate candidate Dr. Oz made headlines for resurfaced claims that he experimented on dogs while a practicing heart surgeon at Columbia University.

PEOPLE spoke with veterinarian Catherine Dell'Orto, who says that within weeks of her start as a post-doctoral fellow in the research labs at Columbia's Institute of Comparative Medicine in July 2001, she was horrified by what she saw.

Dell'Orto specifically said she witnessed the inhumane treatment of dogs in lab experiments investigating aspects of heart function over which Oz served in the role of "principal investigator" — including leaving dogs in pain and paralyzed for weeks, with no discernible research benefit, before they were euthanized or died.

Dell'Orto said she did not see Oz in the labs performing any of the dog experiments, which she says were directly conducted instead by Ph.D. students and post-doctoral fellows.

Columbia's website says that when one is named principal investigator of a research study, he or she "has overall responsibility for safety and compliance in his or her laboratory."

According to Dell'Orto, other principal investigators did come into the lab and directly oversee their animals' care, but with Oz, she said, "There were no endpoints. What I saw was abuse."

President Donald Trump speaks during a rally on November 3, 2020 in Grand Rapids, Michigan
President Donald Trump speaks during a rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Kamil Krzaczynski/Getty Images

Oct. 2016: A Trump Interview with Access Hollywood Leaks

In early October 2016, weeks ahead of the general presidential election, a video from 2005 (taken during an interview with Access Hollywood) emerged showing then reality star Donald Trump saying lewd comments about women, including that "you can do anything" to women "when you're a star."

The fallout was immense for some — but not necessarily Trump. The other person featured in the video — former Access Hollywood host Billy Bush, the nephew of George W. — was fired from his job as an anchor on Today as a result of the tape. He later made his television return on the show Extra.

Trump later apologized, and another October surprise swooped in to take off some of the pressure.

Hillary Clinton and James Comey
Gene J. Puskar/AP; Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images.

Oct. 2016: The FBI Opens an Investigation into Hillary Clinton's Handling of Emails

FBI Director James Comey delivered a devastating blow to Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign just 11 days before the 2016 election, writing a letter to Congress declaring that a newly discovered cache of emails (found during an investigation into Rep. Anthony Weiner, who was at the time married to Clinton aide Huma Abedin) "appear[ed] to be pertinent to the investigation" of Clinton's private email server.

Comey's announcement upended Clinton's campaign at a crucial time and, only 36 hours before Election Day, Comey announced there was nothing new in the batch of emails and that the FBI would not seek charges against the Democratic nominee.

The damage, however, had been done.

"Well, great. Too little, too late," Clinton wrote in her 2017 memoir, What Happened. "The rest is history."

Clinton would go on to lose the election to Republican opponent Donald Trump.

Mitt Romney
Sen. Mitt Romney. Rick Bowmer/AP/Shutterstock

Oct. 2012: In Leaked Footage, Mitt Romney Talks About the 47%

Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney's campaign suffered when leaked footage — taken at a $50,000 per plate fundraiser in Florida — showed him saying that his job "is not to worry" about the 47% of people who would vote for his then-rival, Democratic incumbent Barack Obama, "no matter what."

"I'll never convince them that they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives," Romney said.

Romney would go on to lose to Obama, who later said of the video: "I also believe that when he said behind closed doors that 47 percent of the country consider themselves victims who abuse personal responsibility," Politico reported.

Obama continued: "Think about who he was talking about: folks on Social Security who've worked all their lives, veterans who've sacrificed for this country, students who are out there trying to hopefully advance their own dreams but also this country's dreams, soldiers who are overseas fighting for us right now, people who are out there working hard every day ... and I want to fight for them, that's what I've been doing for the last four years."

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Former U.S. President George W. Bush
George W. Bush. Richard Rodriguez/Getty Images

Oct. 2000: Fox News Reports That George W. Bush Had Been Arrested for a DUI 24 Years Prior

Politico reports that Republican George W. Bush and Democrat Al Gore were tied in the polls in the final weeks leading up to the election, when Fox News reported that Bush had been arrested for drunk driving in 1976.

Bush would go on to win despite the report — though he faced an uphill battle as he lost the popular vote and the race required a now-infamous recount.

Later, former adviser Karl Rove would attribute the closeness of the race at least partly to the DUI scandal, writing in his memoir, "If Bush did drop 2 percent nationally in the vote because of the DUI revelation, then it probably cost him four additional states that he lost by less than 1 percent — New Mexico, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Oregon."

Had Bush won those states, Rove wrote, he could have won the White House "without Florida."

"Of the things I would redo in the 2000 election, making a timely announcement about Bush's DUI would top the list," he said.

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