Do Presidential Debates Impact Election Outcomes?

The presidential debates are generally considered the last big opportunity to move voters before the election. They offer rare moments for Americans to do some head-to-head comparison shopping between two candidates on the same stage discussing the issues.

And yet, according to the numbers, the debates have done little to change the fundamental structure of recent presidential races. Looking at pre-debate NBC News/Wall Street Journal presidential polls and the final election results since 1992, there is only one campaign where the debate may have made a serious difference — 2000.

In every other case, the candidate that led going into the debates wound up winning on Election Day.

And, to be fair about 2000, Democrat Al Gore actually did get more votes than Republican George W. Bush (but lost the Electoral College), so technically — where the popular vote is concerned — the numbers above show a perfect 6 for 6. The candidate that led in the poll going into the debate period won the election.

Does that mean debates never matter? No. They give the media a chance to hold candidates' feet to the fire. They give voters a way to see how candidates handle the pressure of a big audience in a prize fight atmosphere. They give the candidates a chance to close the deal or one last chance to raise questions about their opponent.

But changing an election? The lone debate between Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter in 1980 is often cited as an example of one that did, but the evidence for that isn't completely clear.

Gallup polling showed Carter with a lead over Reagan just before the October 28th debate and Reagan wound up winning by 10 points. But an analysis of a collection of polls over the course of the year from the political science blog The Monkey Cage shows that Reagan actually led by a solid margin from June going forward to Election Day.

There are debate moments people remember. The 1988 debate between George H. W. Bush and Michael Dukakis featured Dukakis's cool answer to what he would do if he found his wife had been raped and murdered. There was the time in the 1992 town hall debate between Bill Clinton and Bush, when Bush looked at his watch, seemingly bored. And there were Al Gore's audible sighs during his debate with George W. Bush. But poll numbers suggest all those memories did nothing to change the shape of those races.

Considering the high-stakes moments that the debates create one might expect them to matter more to the bottom line, but remember debates happen late — very late — in the campaign. By the time those candidates hit the stage most voters have seen and heard from them over and over again on TV, online, in the newspaper and on the radio. Voter's images of the candidates are usually well-formed.

Of course, that's doubly true in modern presidential campaigns, where another seems to start as soon as the current one ends. Look at this year's nominees.

archive.is/shsHe
archive.is/shsHe
archive.is/shsHe

Almost all of the battleground states are currently in dead heat, we're talking about a difference of around 2% in one direction or another, which is smaller than the margin of error. Yes, the debates are going to decide who wins this election. You know how you can tell? (((they))) are posting that the debates are meaningless and boring and totally not worth watching all over the place.

Sage for spreading obvious shill bullshit.

Civilizations that actually thought this way went extinct.

Also,


Fucking kill yourself op.

el o el

Pretty much any poll will show at least 10% undecided.

10% either way will change the result based on your numbers.

Although most polls MASSIVELY under poll independents, so I think Trump is going to win by a double digit landslide simply because indies favor Trump by a huge margin.

Fuck off kike.

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The debate hasn't even happened yet and they're already rolling out the damage control

Imbressive

((( they ))) are afraid. They post a shitty map after spending the last 2 weeks shitting themselves.

Go shill for Hillary somewhere else you fucking faggot.

BUT user, CAN'T YOU SEE THAT THIS MAP IS ((( GENUINE )))

We have IDs here, shill faggot.

this is a copy pasta from the article, its to show what they are saying right now, stop being such a turn off you schizophrenic faggot.

yes and you have 5 posts, all of which are incredibly shitty.

consider tying a rope around your neck and kill yourself.

Jesus christ leftists are completely incapable of masking their retardation, hilarious.

Shoo, go away kike.

I still think that Trump leads in the polls but the media shows Clinton leading or neck in neck so in case that Trump wins they can rig the election and make Hillary win. I find it hard t believe that the general populace wants the current administration to continue. They will move heaven and earth to make sure that Trump will not win this election.

The only chance have is by a landslide victory, showing the public its neck and neck shows less suspicion in cheating.

Wow, way to turn the tables on me.

They do when a candidate literally shits herself, dies, or collapse on live television.

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Your subversion training is failing you.

and filtered.

*skype
FTFY

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So let me get this straight (might be hard for you). Op posts an article, without personal commentary, and includes images of the (((nbc))) map. Now this let's us discuss the article.

You took this as a shill thread because you took it at face value. Op even said the map was rigged. How dumb are you?

Lastly, my answer is yes, and it's blatantly obvious that it matters, this will be the most televised debate in history.

(Checked)

The only reason I'm saging is because the answer is so blatantly obvious it isn't even worthy of discussion.

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