The race between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump has narrowed to essentially a dead heat nationally in the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll, raising the stakes dramatically for the first presidential debate Monday night. CONT. Gary Langer, ABC News Read more »
Debates don’t often change presidential races. Is 2016 the exception?
Monday’s debate between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton is the most anticipated event of a presidential campaign filled with remarkable and revolting moments. But if the debate season, when it’s all over, has changed the trajectory of the race, it will be a surprise. Amid all the sound and fury, […] Read more »
Can Hillary Clinton Keep You Safe?
… The conventional wisdom among political scientists and pollsters has long held that voters drew on traditional gender roles in deciding whom to trust on what issue, said Marianne Cooper, a sociologist at Stanford’s Clayman Institute for Gender Research. Men, with their claims to strength and aggression, traditionally scored better […] Read more »
Ahead of debates, many voters don’t know much about where Trump, Clinton stand on major issues
The first presidential debate Monday night offers Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton an opportunity to explain their positions on important issues facing the country. Two months after the party conventions, only about half of voters (48%) say they know “a lot” about where Clinton stands on important issues, while even […] Read more »
Why Do Debate ‘Expectations’ Matter?
… The role of expectations in framing press evaluations of presidential debates is sufficiently familiar that we are now regularly subjected to meta-analyses of the “expectations game” in which members of the media evaluate how well the campaigns are manipulating the media. Less commonly discussed, however, is why this practice […] Read more »
It’s All About the Debates Now
A novelty 50 years ago, televised presidential debates are now the centerpiece of the general election phase of the campaign and considered a linchpin in winning the presidency. Debates have become the Super Bowl of the race for the White House, with candidates performing not only for the tens of […] Read more »