Steve Bannon, a former Donald Trump White House chief strategist, has suggested this election’s October Surprise will be Black and Hispanic men refusing to vote for Kamala Harris in key swing states.
Speaking to his WarRoom website, Bannon, who is set to be released from prison following a contempt of Congress conviction, said Harris will face backlash from the important demographics in the battleground states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Georgia due to the failure of the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) to implement fully the First Step Act.
The act, a bipartisan law signed by Trump in 2018 and supported by Harris in the Senate, provides nonviolent drug offenders an opportunity to reduce their sentences by participating in vocational and rehabilitative programs. The law also increased “good time credits” for inmates to shorten their custodial time and reduced certain mandatory minimum sentences.
The BOP has been criticized for reportedly failing to implement the law properly, including not releasing prisoners early who have qualified for reduced sentences based on their earned credits.
Newsweek has contacted Harris’ campaign and the BOP for comment via email.
Bannon said that Harris will lose the support of Black and Hispanic males in the upcoming election as a result of the Biden administration’s inadequate enforcement of Trump’s prison reform legislation.
Steve Bannon arrives at the federal courthouse on June 6, 2024 in Washington, D.C. He said Black and Hispanic men not voting for Kamala Harris in swing states will be this year’s October Surprise.
Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
“October Surprise—Black and Hispanic men detest the ‘Queen of Mass Incarcerations,’ Kamala Harris, and will not vote for her because she refuses to mass deport illegal alien criminals while having her BOP deliberately fail to enforce President Trump’s First Step Act, thus further destroying Black and Hispanic families,” Bannon said.
“The election will turn on this in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Georgia,” he added.
The term “October Surprise” has been used for decades to describe an event around that could change the outcome of a presidential election. October Surprises are considered important as many voters become more engaged in general elections toward the end of the campaign.
“This is not about me—this is about tens of thousands of prisoners that have been screwed over because Harris does not want to enforce a law that President Trump created,” Bannon added. “This is the main reason Black and Hispanic men are not voting for her—they see the destruction of families in their communities.”
Polling indicates that Trump and Harris are essentially tied in Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Michigan with just over a week remaining before the election.
Harris’ clearest path to victory in November would be to win the three blue wall battleground states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, barring any shock results elsewhere. Trump’s most efficient path to 270 Electoral College votes would be to win Georgia, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina.
Harris will need to rely on the typically strong Democratic support of Black and Hispanic voters in these key swing states to secure a victory against Trump. The races in these battleground areas could be decided by just a few thousand votes.
Recent polling from USA Today/Suffolk University suggests that Harris is losing support among Black and Latino voters compared to the 2020 election.
The survey revealed 49 percent of Latino voters said they would back Trump in November, compared to 38 percent for Harris. While the vice president still enjoys overwhelming support from Black voters—72 percent compared to 17 percent—her 55-point advantage over Trump represents a significant decline from the 92 percent support Joe Biden received in the last election.
The national survey indicates that Harris is ahead with 45 percent of the vote, while Trump is at 44 percent. The poll, which sampled 1,000 likely voters from October 14 to 18, has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
The margins for the smaller subsamples of Latino and Black voters is plus or minus 9 percentage points.
Bannon is scheduled to be released from jail on October 29 after serving a four-month sentence.
He was found guilty in 2022 of two counts of contempt of Congress for failing to respond to a subpoena issued by the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 attack on the Capitol.
