Partisan Identity and Affective Polarization in Presidential Debates

Abstract

This study presents the results of a quasi-experiment to assess the effects of viewing the live televised general election presidential and vice-presidential campaign debates. We contribute to a growing empirical record on the polarizing effects of campaign debates by testing some contextual variables that have confounded past researchers. Specifically, we use Trump’s aggressive first debate performance as a test-case of polarizing content and compare it with Trump’s second debate performance along with the other 2020 debates. We also test whether, as some have hypothesized, vice-presidential debates are more polarizing. Finally, we consider Biden—a candidate who has been polarizing and depolarizing in his vice-presidential debates, as a candidate-specific source of uncertainty in existing findings. We find further evidence that campaign debates increase ingroup affection—or the extent to which co-partisans reward the ingroup candidate. Conversely, outgroup hostility did not increase even after Trump’s first debate. We conclude that debates may contribute to polarization, but only through ingroup affection, not outgroup animosity.