2023-09-16 23:42:38
At the end of August, former President Donald Trump did not attend the first debate of the Republican candidates for the presidency of the United States. Lost support? On the contrary. He is still up in the polls heading to the White House.
Days ago, Javier Milei’s closest circle suggested that the presidential candidate would not participate in the debates in Argentina, something that ultimately will not happen (he has already confirmed that he will). Could he harm him? Can debates influence the voter?
Three experts in political communication assure that the influence is very little, although they can contribute other elements to the public discussion, such as greater visibility, in the case of candidates who are going backwards, or the installation of non-verbal images that define profiles ( and they can be memes).
“Set agenda”
For political scientist Ana Iparraguirre, although “in general terms, there have been occasions where debates have had a significant impact on voters’ decisions, most of the time they do not usually change voting intentions.”
In any case, Iparraguirre highlights that several other things can happen. “For example, it can serve to set the agenda. That is, they can change the social conversation and install topics that were not present,” he says.
The political scientist Ana Iparraguirre. (Courtesy TN)
“Another thing that can happen, in the case of Juan Schiaretti and Myriam Bregman, is that the debates tend to be platforms that benefit and give more visibility to the smaller candidates than, when the election is polarized, in this case in three main forces, are less present in the public conversation. The debate equalizes them and gives them more space to present their proposals,” he describes.
“And thirdly, something very important: they tend to reinforce the vision that voters had of the candidates before entering the debate. Therefore, in general, they serve to reinforce what was already thought,” highlights the political scientist.
In any case, Iparraguirre clarifies that in “an unstructured debate there may be opportunities for unexpected questions, which do not have so much to do with the verbal but with the expression of the candidates.” For example, he cites the kiss of Mauricio Macri and Juliana Awada in 2015, or the rosy face of John F. Kennedy against Richard Nixon in 1960.2
“It’s more about the search for an anecdote”
“In general terms, the influence of a debate on the vote is limited,” analyzes Gustavo Marangoni, political scientist and director of M& R Asociados, and adds: “There is a lot of literature, here and in the world, about how much it influences… and if there is a lot of literature it is because there is really no evidence, except in some specific case, that it can have a bearing on what society decides.”
“Partly, because an important part of the debate already arrives with its vote decided. And for the rest, who are the ones who decide in the last days, between 15 and 20% of the registry, it will be one more input; but I don’t know if it is the main input,” remarks the specialist, who accompanied Daniel Scioli in the 2015 campaign.
In Marangoni’s opinion, one difficulty is that debates like the Argentine one arrive “very regulated and standardized,” where everything that has to do with “the possibility of crossovers and spontaneity is reduced to a minimum.”
Gustavo Marangoni, political scientist and director of M& R Asociados. (Courtesy of La Nación)
“It is more about the search for an anecdote, for some Chicana that remains as a memory and that can be made into a ‘meme’, in these times of social networks, than in other circumstances,” he emphasizes.
What can happen with Schiaretti? “I can probably highlight, from the point of view of his oratory intervention, the experience he has at the provincial government level. And also, because he is not focused on the three probable members of a possible runoff, he has more freedom of movement than the others and can risk a little more,” he responds.
But the political scientist clarifies that this, for Schiaretti, would not give him the chance to “significantly increase his voting capacity for this election.” Although perhaps to mark presence and a political line with “a message for Peronism for after December 10.”
“What has been proven is that those who have a good performance are not necessarily those who later collect the greatest voting intention,” he concludes.
“It gives you the chance to play a card”
“Coming from a Paso, where people have already voted once, what an electoral campaign should try to do is change the vote. It seeks to change a decision that has already been made. And that makes the ability to modify a campaign limited,” warns Mr. Maximiliano Aguiar, president of the Argentine Association of Political Consultants (ASACOP).
“In that limited framework, the debate is one of the moments in which a message can be put. Because? Not only because it gives the possibility of a direct face-to-face with other figures, but because the subsequent level of coverage, whether in networks or mass media, gives you the chance to play a card,” he adds. “And that letter is not necessarily a proposal.”
Maximiliano Aguiar, president of the Argentine Association of Political Scientists (Facundo Luque / La Voz)
What type of letter? “If we look at the most remembered issues, for example, in the Macri-Scioli debate, we see that they were not proposed. Macri and Awada’s kiss, or ‘What have you become, Daniel?’” he exemplifies.
Aguiar clarifies that “the point is that these issues are also significant in political terms.”
“The ‘What have they turned you into, Daniel?’ It implied what his leadership role was, what his link with Kirchnerism was. That is, behind that there was politics. What there is not is a question traditionally thought of in rational terms, but rather a transmission through an efficient mechanism that Macri found,” he describes.
“Can something change in voters? Yes. Which does not imply that it necessarily does…”, she assures.
And he warns, at the end, about a possible absence of a candidate. “There is a previous history of absences from debates that generate costs, which is why it is an advance in Argentine politics that there are sanctions if someone does not go,” he emphasizes.
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