The United States has historically held televised presidential and vice-presidential debates since 1960, when the first televised debate was held, according to the official website of the U.S. Senate. Since then, candidates have been warring against one another live on television in the hope that they can sway the average American voter to their side — but the truth is, the debate doesn’t change the vote for most Americans.
“Ultimately, does it have any impact on [Americans’] vote choice?” Professor Thomas Hayes, Ph.D., asked in an interview with the Daily Campus. Hayes teaches political science at the University of Connecticut. “What’s their takeaway, and who do they think did a better job? And ultimately, does it have any impact on their vote choice? If that’s the measure, I think vice-presidential debates don’t matter very much. It’s very unlikely to change people’s vote choice.”
These debates happen every election cycle. The vice-presidential candidates, whose names are not at the top of the ticket, have the unique task of bolstering their running mate and their ideas. Kamala Harris and Donald Trump can debate as much as they like about topics they care about, but JD Vance and Tim Walz specifically must support their party’s choice.
In 2019, Vincent Pons, professor at Harvard Business School, Ph.D. in Economics and Master’s degrees in Economics and Political Philosophy and Caroline Le Pennec, assistant professor at HEC Montréal, Ph.D. in Economics, published a paper titled “How Do Campaigns Shape Vote Choice? Multi-Country Evidence from 62 Elections and 56 TV Debates.” Surveying voters and analyzing trends and patterns, the pair ultimately concluded that televised debates did little to affect voters.
“Most importantly, our event study finds that TV debates – for all the interest they generate, the large viewing audience they draw, and the many media commentaries they provoke – neither increase individual vote choice consistency nor reduce the distance to final vote shares,” the paper said. “If anything, TV debates move a small fraction of voters away from their final vote choice, in the short term.”
If televised debates do next to nothing in terms of influencing the way people vote, why should the average American consider watching them?
“Candidates are putting forth their issue positions,” Hayes said in response, when discussing the 2024 vice-presidential debate between vice-presidential candidates Vance (R) and Walz (D). “It’s more time for us to get to know the candidates that are running, and the types of policies that might be enacted, depending on which administration is elected.”
“There’s such rare moments in American politics where you really get a more unvarnished view of the candidates,” Hayes explained. “In debates, the nice thing is that they don’t know the questions that are coming. The moderators, they’re not friendly media sources. A lot of times, candidates go and do interviews in the most friendly way that they can.”
“You get to see how they respond, and the kind of examples that they give, on a wide range of things. There’s not many debates that we have, and so I think it’s an interesting moment to get to know the candidates,” Hayes said.
In terms of getting to know the candidates, Vance and Walz both had their time to shine. “The event left viewers with more positive views of both candidates than they held pre-debate,” CNN wrote in an article, referring to the results of a poll conducted post-debate. “Both men, the poll finds, are viewed by a majority of debate watchers as qualified to assume the presidency if needed.”
Although the vice-presidential debate likely didn’t affect the way Americans will vote in the upcoming presidential election, that doesn’t mean it’s inconsequential in the eyes of Professor Hayes.
“On the array of things that’s in voters’ concerns, I don’t think the vice-presidential debate is at the top of them,” Hayes noted. “It’s about big issues, it’s about current events, it’s about the economy, it’s about how do [Americans] think a Trump administration, or a Harris administration is going to handle those problems.”
This election does have a wide variety of policy issues that voters might focus on. At the vice-presidential debate, moderators asked questions related to abortion, immigration, foreign relations with Israel, climate change, and more. “It’s not that it doesn’t matter,” Hayes said in reference to the debate. “It’s that it matters less than other things,” he said.
The Oct. 1 debate between Vance and Walz will likely do nothing to affect the election. However, Americans can still meet the pair of candidates and learn more about what policies might affect their lives after the election has been decided by watching the debate unfold — although Hayes did stress the importance of utilizing independent fact-checking websites.
“The best way for people to get informed about what the candidates are saying, whether it’s true or not, or about the issues, or what the administration’s going to be like, is a wide variety of news sources,” Hayes concluded.