For decades, political scientists have maintained that debates don’t really matter.
Then 2024 came along.
President Joe Biden’s nationally televised face-plant not only knee-capped his bid for reelection, it upended longstanding convention and defied history. And Tuesday’s showdown between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump could be just as consequential.
The extremely close polling and political reality — voters are still forming opinions about Harris as a candidate — make the stakes for the Harris-Trump debate potentially enormous. The developments since the June Biden-Trump debate — the Trump assassination attempt, the switch atop the Democratic ticket, both party conventions — have activated swaths of the electorate that were unmotivated and less interested just three months ago.
All of it adds up to a widely anticipated event with a likely large viewership, and one candidate with a lot on the line in a very close election. And that means it could be another history-defying, needle-moving debate.
To be fair to the political scientists, their claim has never been that the debates don’t have any impact on the election. It’s that polling numbers historically don’t shift much from before the debate to after, and that — despite the enormous TV audience — voters watch at home more to cheer for their side than decide which candidate they will support.
And in an era of close elections, even the smallest ripple effect could affect the outcome. It’s impossible to say whether then-Vice President Richard Nixon’s five o’clock shadow in the first-ever televised debate in 1960 led to his narrow defeat, or then-Vice President Al Gore’s sighs made the difference between winning and losing Florida in 2000.
That’s where this year’s race stands as both candidates prepare to take the stage in Philadelphia: virtually deadlocked in the battle for the Electoral College. Polling averages show neither candidate is meaningfully ahead in enough states to clinch the presidency.
The televised debates date back to September 26, 1960, when Nixon and John F. Kennedy (D-Mass.) met in Chicago. Though Nixon effectively rebutted Kennedy’s arguments, he appeared “tense, almost frightened, at turns glowering and, occasionally, haggard-looking to the point of sickness,” according to Teddy White’s account in “The Making of the President 1960.”
It’s a seminal moment in presidential campaign history. But the actual change in the race was more modest. According to Gallup polling, the two men were roughly tied going into the debate, and Kennedy led by 3 points following it. (Kennedy’s less-than-a-half-point popular-vote victory suggests any bounce for the then-Massachusetts senator may have receded by Election Day.)
Other famous debate moments also haven’t made a huge dent in the polling. With the exception of 1976, polling around the debates has been relatively stable. And the more significant changes through the debate season in 1976 were consistent with the general tightening of the race between then-President Gerald Ford and the eventual winner, Jimmy Carter.
From 1980 through 2008, polls “the week after the debate closely matched those the week before the debate,” Robert S. Erikson and Christopher Wlezien wrote in their book, “The Timeline of Presidential Elections: How Campaigns Do (and Do Not) Matter,” suggesting the debates didn’t have big impacts on those races. In 2012, Republican Mitt Romney surged briefly against then-President Barack Obama after their first debate, but Obama rebounded quickly.
In 2016, it’s impossible to disentangle the effects of the three debates between Trump and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton from other seismic moments in the campaign: the FBI investigation into Clinton’s use of a private e-mail server, or Trump bragging about sexually assaulting women on the “Access Hollywood” tape. Similarly, in 2020, the race was mostly stable throughout the fall, with Biden in the lead.
This time, there’s ample reason to believe the debate could be pivotal. While Harris’ favorability ratings have surged since ascending to the nomination, a significant share of voters say their opinions of her aren’t fully formed yet.
In a New York Times/Siena College poll released this week, 28 percent of likely voters said they feel like they need to hear more about the vice president (compared to 71 percent who said they pretty much know everything they need to know about her). By comparison, 90 percent of voters said they know pretty much everything they need to know about Trump.
And then there’s the overall tightness of the race. In the seven states universally considered to be in play — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — the race couldn’t be closer, according to polling averages.
RealClearPolitics shows Harris leading in three states, Trump ahead in another three and the candidates deadlocked in Pennsylvania, the tipping point state. Both FiveThirtyEight and Nate Silver’s Silver Bulletin have Harris technically ahead in enough states for an Electoral College majority, but only by the slimmest of margins: Both averages also have Pennsylvania as the tipping point, but her lead is under 1 percentage point.
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