Q&A of the Day – Did the VP Debate Matter?
Each day I feature a listener question sent by one of these methods.
Email: brianmudd@iheartmedia.com
Social: @brianmuddradio
iHeartRadio: Use the Talkback feature – the microphone button on our station’s page in the iHeart app.
Today’s Entry: Brian, I enjoy your show and usually agree with your analysis, however I’d like to challenge something you said about the debate. You mentioned that this might be the VP debate to make a difference in the race. Sure, just about anything is possible I suppose, however how realistic is that train of thought really? We know veep debates haven’t moved the needle in the past and these two are lessor knowns than most running mates. My gut says ratings were low and that the only people tuning into the debate were the passionate bases of both candidates that aren’t persuadable anyway.
Bottom Line: Today’s note is in response to this comment I made in my takeaways yesterday: This just might have been the first vice presidential debate in American history that mattered. And that’s for one very specific reason. Everything that Donald Trump isn’t, that makes many Americans in the middle uncomfortable with him... JD Vance is and last night he proved it. Young, precise, humble and clearly capable. Now, I’m going to start by helping assist you in making your point to counter my comment. There is only one VP debate in American history that had higher ratings than one of the presidential debates within the same cycle. Do you know which one it was? The 2008 VP debate between Joe Biden and Sarah Palin which drew 69.9 million viewers – which topped all three of the Obama-McCain debates in that cycle. Now, I’m not sure that Joe Biden remembers that debate any longer, but even if he did, I don’t think even he would credit his debate performance as a key to Barack Obama’s win in that election. In fact, there’s no indication that there was any movement in the presidential race following that debate, and again, in theory given the size of the audience and the relative interest in that debate, should move the needle if it was going to be moved.
Every election cycle I’m quick to point out how the hype leading up to the selection of a running mate doesn’t actually translate to results. Take for example my July story entitled: The (Lack of) Impact Vice Presidential Picks Have on Election Outcomes where I pointed this out: In reality, there’s no evidence that a running mate in either party has had any material impact on the outcome of an election in at least several generations. For those who question that statement btw, answer this question. In which presidential election have you voted for president due to the running mate? No running mate has had any evidenced impact where it matters most – the Electoral College – in recent political history. To find the last Presidential election cycle where there’s evidence that a VP pick impacted the outcome in a state, you’d have to travel back to the 1960 Presidential election when JFK’s running mate, Lyndon Johnson, won his home state of Texas. And as it pertains to that 1960 election – Johnson's influence didn’t have anything to do with a debate.
The first VP debate didn’t take place until 1976. It’s a relatively recent development in presidential politics. But there’s a key dynamic that’s in play when we’re talking about debates – and it’s something I emphasized following the Harris-Trump debate when I said: For 96% of voters the debate was political theater with people routing for their respective teams. The debate wasn’t about you or me or the Swifties, because we already knew how we were going to vote. The debate was about the 4%. That’s roughly the percentage of people who went into Tuesday night’s debate without a preferred presidential candidate. At this point what happens with the 4%er’s in the swing states will decide this election. What we’re seeing in the immediate aftermath of the debate this week is that the perception of the debate and the political reality of the debate may be in two different places. It was in that immediate post-debate analysis that I highlighted how truly undecided voters – the 4%ers saw the debate. It was different than the general public perception of it having been a big win for Harris. The consensus in focus groups and in the immediate polling to emerge was that undecided voters aren’t undecided because they don’t know what Trump’s about. They’re undecided because they weren’t yet comfortable with being able to support Kamala Harris and she largely didn’t do anything to help her cause in that debate with these voters.
Informationally my thesis from the previous debate held. Preceding the VP debate Kamala Harris gained 0.8% on average in national polls. However, within swing states she held an electoral college advantage preceding her debate with Trump, but Trump held the advantage before the VP debate. Why? Because the very few undecided voters who made up their minds in swing states have gravitated towards Trump. Here’s where this ties together with today’s question.
Remember how 4% of voters in the RCP average of polls were undecided before the presidential debate? That number was 3.4% as of Tuesday. Here are two reasons why the VP debate may have mattered this time... 1) Undecided voters are among the most likely to have tuned into the debate but also... 2) What happens after a debate these days has the potential to matter more than what happened during the debate. A Pew Research Center study has found that aside from the 1996 election cycle, at least 50% of undecided voters have said debates are helpful in making a decision about who to vote for. Historically that’s been exclusive to the presidential debates. However as opposed to the usual 3-4 presidential debates preceding the election, there is only one between Harris and Trump (even in 2020 during COVID there were two). That inherently puts more weight for the undecided voters on the VP debate because there aren’t any other major catalysts on the calendar for them to shape their opinions. The other reason comes down to the Super Bowl Commercial factor.
The reason why companies have most recently forked over $7 million for 30 second Super Bowl ads isn’t because that’s the value based on the audience they’re reaching with their ads live during the game. It’s not. It’s because far more people watch Super Bowl ads online after the game, especially the ones that connect and are trending, than they do during the game. The same thing happens with debate clips. But the final reason I’ll offer as to why we may have finally had a VP debate that mattered, is yet again due to undecided voter analysis info. Take CBS News’ own panel after the debate. They had two undecided voters on their panel. After the VP debate, both said they were voting for Trump.