What transpires on the cusp of Election Day could tip the outcome of the presidential race because of the inability of the disfavored candidate to respond.

Richard Nixon shipwrecked President Lyndon B. Johnson’s 1968 11th-hour maneuvering to arrange for Paris peace talks over the Vietnam War to boost Democratic Party presidential nominee Hubert Humphrey.

Ronald Reagan’s 1980 campaign worried over political maneuvers by President Jimmy Carter to secure the release of American hostages held by Iran in the American embassy in Tehran on the eve of the November presidential election.

Thereafter, the term “October surprise” entered the American political lexicon, implying that a presidential candidate or third party would be tempted to execute or scuttle something politically explosive on the eve of the election in an attempt to determine the result.

Hillary Clinton’s 2016 October surprise was FBI Director James Comey’s Oct. 28 letter announcing the reopening of an investigation of her emails.

Of course, stunning political developments can decisively impact the presidential election whether they occur in October or any other month; recall the 1968 Tet Offensive in Vietnam, President Nixon’s 1974 resignation under an impeachment cloud or President Gerald Ford’s pardon of Nixon in 1975.

An October surprise has become a pejorative, insinuating a cynical electoral move by a candidate timed to deny the opponent the opportunity to offer an effective response. It may hurt rather than help a candidate who has engineered it. Further, the election gambit has become less and less to be feared because the modern digital media world endows candidates with an ability to respond instantly through social media to hundreds of millions of voters to any dramatic or controversial political event or development. The television heydays of Walter Cronkite, David Brinkley, Howard K. Smith, Max Robinson and Barbara Walters are today’s museum pieces.

The October surprise concept confirms that the outcome of political elections is uncertain, that events are in the saddle and that no candidate should begin running victory laps until all the votes have been counted. If American politics were certain, there would be no need for elections. Remember the smiling President Harry Truman after the 1948 presidential election holding up a newspaper bearing the headline, “DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN.”

The October surprise we’re most likely to see in 2024 is President Joe Biden ordering an attack on Iran in collaboration with Israel to destroy Iran’s nuclear program. In the face of warnings from Iran against U.S. participation in Israel’s expected retaliatory attack on Iran, Biden has already sent a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense battery to Israel along with 100 troops needed to operate it. Shortly after Biden spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this month, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Galant declared that Israel’s attack will be “deadly, precise and above all surprising. They will not understand what happened and how it happened, they will see the results.”

War is a time-honored tactic for an incumbent president to spike popularity.

Armstrong Williams (www.armstrongwilliams.com; @arightside) is a political analyst, syndicated columnist and owner of the broadcasting company, Howard Stirk Holdings. He is also part owner of The Baltimore Sun.