Debates have little impact on outcome

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 01/10/2020 (1449 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Presidential debates are one of the highlights of the U.S. presidential election cycle, and hardly anyone doubted that the debates this year between Republican incumbent Donald Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden would score high on entertainment value. The first debate this week confirmed that they will be a spectacle — hard to take your eyes off, even if you’d like to.

Trump can sometimes be charming and funny. Many commentators — including this one — expected to see a less, um, “Trumpy” Trump on display during the debate. Instead, the president imported his Twitter persona straight into the debate hall, frequently interrupting and insulting Biden, scrapping with the moderator and pointedly refusing to commit to a peaceful transfer of power if he loses the election.

At several points in the debate, Trump accused Biden of graduating “last in his class” and referenced Biden’s son Hunter, even raising the younger Biden’s previous drug problems. Following the debate, opinion was divided among the various American news networks, with commentators on CNN scandalized by Trump’s brawling tactics and Fox’s Sean Hannity lauding the president’s strong public persona.

Biden entered the debate to low expectations, and easily surpassed them. Trump clearly intended to knock Biden off his stride, and succeeded several times. But Republicans, who have spent months claiming that Biden is suffering from cognitive decline, hoped to see the Democratic nominee reduced to a sputtering mess, and that never happened.

But Biden stumbled nevertheless: when asked directly whether he would attempt to pack the Supreme Court if Trump’s most recent nominee is confirmed, he flat out refused to answer, inviting criticism that he was not being transparent.

Biden never landed a convincing blow on Trump, which is remarkable considering the current president’s record, particularly with regard to the U.S. government’s response to COVID-19. But Biden is ahead in the polls, so avoiding disaster amounted to a win for him.

It’s difficult to imagine that many undecided voters watched Trump’s performance and were convinced as a result to vote for him. I think it’s undeniable that Trump won the debate, such as it was, and he likely energized a segment of his supporters. But winning on points counts for little if it will have no impact on the election results.

When I was a teenager, my mom found an old political-science textbook in a used bookstore and gave it to me. The book included a compelling study of the first televised presidential debate from 1960, between Democrat John F. Kennedy and Republican Richard Nixon. Analysts were interested in whether televising the debate rather than simply broadcasting via radio led to one candidate or the other gaining an advantage.

The possibility that this was the case was driven in part by differences between the candidates: in the words of the CBS president at the time, “Kennedy was bronzed beautifully…Nixon looked like death.” That is slightly uncharitable, but Nixon — sweating, his makeup running and his five’o’clock shadow clearly visible — was obviously at a disadvantage to Kennedy in front of the television cameras.

The result of televising the debate was that those who watched on television thought Kennedy won, whereas those who listened on radio gave the win to Nixon. There is a great deal to take from this, notably that Kennedy won on the basis of image whereas Nixon excelled in his mastery of the public policies discussed. Nevertheless, Kennedy went on to win the election.

This was an early study and it suffered from some flaws. Since then, many other similar studies have explored whether U.S. presidential debates ultimately affect the vote. The answer is largely “no.”

Political scientist James Stimson studied presidential elections between 1960 and 2000 and found no evidence that debates led to substantial shifts in public opinion. They may give certain candidates a “nudge,” and this only applies in campaigns in which the candidates are very close to one another in public support (such as the razor-close 2000 election which resulted in the election of president George W. Bush).

A later study that incorporates a massive number of polls from presidential elections between 1952 and 2008 found no evidence that public opinion changes from before to after the presidential debates. One exception is the 1976 election, and even in this case it is unclear that the debates had any effect on voters’ evaluations of Democrat Jimmy Carter, which were already dropping prior to the debates.

Debates may not affect election outcomes, but they are nevertheless compelling exercises in civic engagement. This week’s debate was watched by 29 million viewers in the U.S. — a decline from the 2016 Clinton-Trump debates, which attracted 45.3 million viewers.

In a country as fragmented as the U.S., it is remarkable to see such a large number of Americans engaging in the same civic activity at the same time. Trump’s antics, however, might have some viewers swearing off watching future debates.

Royce Koop is head of the political studies department at the University of Manitoba.