Televised Presidential Debates and Its Influence on Voters

August 30, 2006 by
Corey Sipe  
Corey Sipe
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Predictors of How People Will Vote, Persuasion Techniques Candidates Use During Debates, and Differences Between Exposure to the Actual Debate and Exposure to News Coverage of the Debate

This paper will explore the affect television presidential debates have on a presidential campaign. It will discuss predictors of how people will vote, what persuasion techniques candidates use during debates, and the differences between exposure to the actual debate and exposure to news
 coverage of the debate. Election campaigns are key moments in democratic democracies because they enable citizens to hear different political viewpoints and make the right choice in voting for a candidate that will best represent their needs. 

In debates, candidates must face unanticipated questions forcing spontaneous responses. Voters obtain a less artificial view of the candidates in debates than from speeches or television spots. Speeches often go through many drafts while television spots have multiple takes (Benoit, et. al., 2002). 

Issue positions and candidate images are two important predictors of how people will vote. The authors asked open-ended questions based on National Election Studies data about presidential candidates and concluded that three groups of comments emerged: comments about a political party, comments about a candidates’ issue position, and comments about a candidate’s personality traits. The author explains that this pattern has continued for over twenty years (Mille, et. al., 1984). 

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