Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - 19

TEN MILES SQUARE
“… such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) … [shal l ] become the Seat of the Government of the United States”
the constitution of the united states

hen a presidential race is as close as this year’s, there is endless speculation about what might tip the outcome to Barack Obama or Mitt Romney. One of the most anticipated events is the debates scheduled for October, which are already being hyped as potential “game changers.” A common presumption about presidential debates is that one candidate can guarantee victory with a well-timed riposte or send their campaign into an irrevocable tailspin with an ill-timed stumble. After all, every political observer can point to truly “important” debates or moments during debates: the first televised debate between Kennedy and Nixon; the moment when Gerald Ford said, “There is no Soviet domination of eastern Europe”; Michael Dukakis’s answer to the question about whether he would support the comparing the polls before and after death penalty if his wife were murdered; each debate or during the debate seaGeorge H. W. Bush looking at his watch; son as a whole. Political lore often glosses over or even ignores the polling data. Al Gore sighing. That presidential debates can be “game Even those who do pay attention to polls often fail to separate real changchangers” is a belief almost universally held by political pundits and strategists. es from random blips due to sampling Political scientists, however, aren’t so error. A more careful study by political scientist James Stimson finds little evsure. Indeed, scholars who have looked idence of game changers in the presimost carefully at the data have found that, when it comes to shifting enough dential campaigns between 1960 and votes to decide the outcome of the elec- 2000. Stimson writes, “There is no case tion, presidential debates have rarely, if where we can trace a substantial shift to the debates.” At best, debates provide a ever, mattered. The small or nonexistent movement “nudge” in very close elections like 1960, in voters’ preferences is evident when 1980, or 2000. An even more comprehen-

Do Presidential Debates Really Matter?
Remember all the famous moments in past debates that changed the outcome of those elections? Well, they didn’t.
By John Sides
sive study, by political scientists Robert Erikson and Christopher Wlezien, which includes every publicly available poll from the presidential elections between 1952 and 2008, comes to a similar conclusion: excluding the 1976 election, which saw Carter’s lead drop steadily throughout the fall, “the best prediction from the debates is the initial verdict before the debates.” In other words, in the average election year, you can accurately predict where the race will stand after the debates by knowing the state of the race before the debates. Erikson and Wlezien conclude that evidence of debate effects is “fragile.”
Washington Monthly 19

Washington Monthly - September/October 2012

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