Earlier this summer, Donald Trump pummeled Joe Biden in the first debate. This month, Kamala Harris did unto Trump what he “done unto Biden.” The question is whether debates really matter. I now investigate the track record of the presidential debates, and find that it’s far better to win the final argument as opposed to the opening round.
You’ll find no shortage of articles online that claim “debates don’t matter,” from pundits and sometimes from political scientists. They pretty much rely on analysis from fellow pundits as to who won. And these involve such factors as “the best zinger,” or how the candidates looked, nonverbal cues, and whether they “answered the question” or not, which can be in the form of a “gotcha” question when the smartest response is often not to answer it, but instead explain your position to the people. Voters may well be caring more about the issues affecting them.
So what I did was to analyze the polls, how potential voters feel about the debate. Using surveys from Gallup, CNN, and others, I found that those who win the first debate have historically had a 50-50 shot at winning the presidency in the Fall Election. So that may be where many analysts get their evidence.
But when it comes to subsequent debates, it’s a different story. In this research, I found that the winner of the second debate has historically done much better at winning the presidency. John F. Kennedy, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton twice, George W. Bush, Barack Obama twice, and Joe Biden, all prevailed in the second debates held in their respective election years and went on to success in the Fall Elections later that year.
Only John Kerry (2004) and Hillary Clinton (2016) won the second debates and lost the election. In the polls, Kerry’s win was by a statistically insignificant two-point margin, and a close election loss to George W. Bush. Clinton, of course, won the popular vote, while losing the Electoral College to Donald Trump, showing that winning the debate was not so costly.
So this bodes well for Kamala Harris, right? In fact she’s so confident of repeated success that she’s agreed to another debate, on October 23. Donald Trump has ruled out doing a second debate. But if Harris wants the best chance of winning, she should hope that debate never matters.
In 1980, there was only one debate. In many years, there are two contests. But in some election seasons, there are multiple debates. How does the winner of the final debate do? The one who wins the final contest tends to win in November, but not as strong as the finding for second debate winners.
After all, Hillary Clinton won the third debate, as did John Kerry. Al Gore recovered in 2000 to win the third debate. JFK and Barack Obama won their last debates. Overall, the record for success in the final debate, whether it is the second debate or more, is 66.7% of contests, which is not bad, but not as good as the results from the second debate for the winner.
My son’s always quick with a sports analogy. When I told him the results, he said “You know, that’s like college football. It’s better for the voters if you lose early, rather than lose late in the season.”
For America’s voters, they perhaps want to see if the first debate results were a fluke or not, and may be more likely to tune in to see what happens in the rematch. But after two debates, our attention span may wane a bit.
Perhaps the winner of the second debate should quit while he or she is ahead?
John A. Tures is Professor of Political Science and Coordinator of the Political Science Program at LaGrange College, in LaGrange, Georgia.