Electoral Effect of Presidential Election Debates
Burhanudin Muhtadi
September 26, 1960 was a turning point in the history of presidential election campaigns in the United States. For the first time, television stations in the land of Uncle Sam broadcast a debate between presidential election candidates.
Some 70 million television viewers watched John F. Kennedy as the presidential candidate from the Democratic Party square off against Richard Nixon supported by the Republican Party. Millions of voters followed the debate in the radio. Kennedy appeared energetic, fresh and attractive. He also amazed viewers with a charming and articulate communication style. The older Nixon, by contrast, looked somewhat pale. He wore a gray suit, not an ideal color, because it drowned out his appearance against the studio background when watched on a black and white television screen.
After the debate, television viewers declared Kennedy as the winner, because he was visually more attractive. In contrast, radio listeners -- who did not see Kennedy and Nixon directly – considered Nixon the winner. As the incumbent, Nixon mastered the topics better than Kennedy. That television debate was one of the keys to Kennedy\'s success in entering the White House.
The strong influence of the televised debate inspired Michael Bauman’s (2007) tele-politics theory on the growing role of the media, especially television, in persuading voters. Debates broadcast widely by television benefit two parties at once: the presidential candidates and their success teams do not need to greet voters one by one, and there is no need for voters to attend campaign events.
What about the debate between presidential and vice-presidential candidates in Indonesia? What is the electoral effect of the debates broadcast across the country by television?
Is the debate important for the voters?
The first debate of the presidential and vice-presidential candidates, which is initiated by the General Elections Commission (KPU), will be held on Jan. 17, 2019. Experience shows that the debate is important in shaping voter preferences. A nationwide survey by Indikator Politik Indonesia, conducted from June 18-26, 2014, a few weeks before the 2014 presidential election, found 79.2 percent of voters considered the debate very or quite important.
The significance of the debate was even higher among respondents who had telephones/cellphones (92.4 percent considered the debate to be crucial). A breakdown by demographics shows that male, young, educated and urban voters attributed more importance to it than other voter segments.
Not all voters had the time to watch the debate on television. However, in general it could be said that no campaign event was attended by more voters than the TV debates. At the first debate on June 9, 2014, a national survey by Indikator Politik Indonesia at the end of June 2014 found that 34 percent of the voters had watched the program. The proportion of voters who watched the second debate, held on June 15, 2014, was even higher at 56 percent.
The profile of the audience again showed that young, male, educated and urban voters tended to be more interested in watching the debate on television. In televised debates of candidates for regional leadership office we found the same pattern. The proportion of citizens who watched the debates between Jakarta gubernatorial candidates was far higher than the percentage of voters in other provinces, whose level of education and information is lower.
Electoral effects
The greater the audience of the debate, the greater the likelihood that the debate will have an electoral effect. Debates can also affect voters who do not watch them on television themselves. Through the technique of mastering certain opinions, spin doctors, consultants or buzzers on social media can frame the debate to declare the candidate they support as the winner.
Survey data from Indikator Politik Indonesia show that one of the keys to Joko “Jokowi” Widodo\'s victory in 2014 was his debate performance, which was considered better than Prabowo Subianto’s. At the time, many people thought Jokowi -- who was considered less articulate -- would be "swallowed alive” by Prabowo in the debate. What happened was just the opposite. Jokowi appeared to exceed public expectation, while Prabowo made several blunders, especially in the second debate. Prabowo was trapped in big jargon without elaborating on the programs he offered.
According to Indikator Politik Indonesia’s survey conducted at the end of June 2014, 47.6 percent of the respondents declared Jokowi to be in the lead after the first debate, while only 44.5 percent considered Prabowo to be in the lead. In the second debate, held on June 15, the share of voters declaring Jokowi the winner of the debate increased to 48.6 percent, while only 41.6 percent saw Prabowo ahead after the second debate. Jokowi was in the lead in all debate categories, from knowledge of the subject matter and skills of expression to the programs offered.
In the first debate, Jokowi\'s did not obtain much of an electoral effect. There was no significant difference between his electability among voters who watched the debate and those who did not watch it. The effect of the debate was only seen in the second debate. Jokowi\'s electability in the group watching the debate reached 49.6 percent, while only 45.5 percent of the voters who watched the debate chose Prabowo. Prabowo\'s electability was even slightly higher in the group that did not watch the debate.
This debate performance was the turning point for Jokowi\'s electability increase. Before the debate, Jokowi\'s electability had been on a declining trend, even nearly overtaken by Prabowo. Jokowi\'s lively appearance in the 2014 debate was the key to his victory in the 2014 presidential election. Many people had previously thought Jokowi\'s victory was mostly triggered by the success of the "Salam Dua Jari" concert and Fahri Hamzah\'s statement calling Jokowi\'s idea of "Santri Day" crazy. Nationwide, however, the number of people who were aware of these two events was far smaller than the presidential candidate debate audience.
The influence of the debate was also seen in the regional elections. The debate’s effect of the governor-vice governor candidate pair was one of the determining factors for the victory of Anies Baswedan-Sandiaga Uno in the last Jakarta gubernatorial election. Before the first debate, the pair of Agus
Harimurti Yudhoyono-Sylviana Murni was ranked first on the electability board. However, due to the pair\'s poor performance in a series of pre-election debates, voters who from the beginning did not choose the incumbent then transferred their support to Anies-Sandi. The debate was also the key to the success of the pair of Khofifah and Emil Dardak in East Java. However, in North Sumatra, the debate effect did not really explain the victory of Edy Rahmayadi and Musa Rajeckshah. Despite the simple appearance in the debate, Edy-Musa remained in the lead at the voting booth.
Debates and swing voters
The debates’ effect will greatly determine the outcome of the presidential election in 2019. The influence of the debate is more visible especially among swing voters. Swing voters are divided into two. First, voters who already have an electoral preference in favor of a certain candidate pair but may still have a "change of heart". In the Indikator Politik Indonesia survey at the end of December 2018 as many as 16.2 percent of the 90 percent of voters who had a preferred pair claimed that there was a "very or quite large possibility” of them changing their mind. The proportion of voters with low choice "faith" declined compared to the survey from September 2018.
The second group of swing voters are voters who have not chosen yet, which was around 9.2 percent in December 2018. The two types of swing voters totaled 25 percent. In December 2018, the electability of Jokowi-Ma’ruf was 54.9 percent, while that of Prabowo-Sandi was 34.8 percent. Thus, at 25 percent, the share of undecided voters was greater than the difference between decided supporters of the two pairs, which was only around 20 percent. This means that floating voters will again determine the winner of the presidential election, and their preferences are greatly influenced by assessments of the presidential candidate debates.
The tighter the fight between the two pairs, the greater the effect of the debate in changing the game. In a fierce electoral competition, no matter how small the influence of the debate, it will have an impact on the final outcome. This happened in the 2014 presidential election. Ahead of the April 2019 presidential election, although it could not be called a done deal, the difference of 20 percent leaves Prabowo with few options. Prabowo has to do extraordinarily well in the debates so the voters consider him the winner. If Prabowo appears mediocre, voters will find it difficult to determine who is in the lead in the debate, and therefore the electability gap with Jokowi will not change much.
Do not forget, loyal voters are generally less affected by the debate. Loyal voters tend to make their choice and sort the facts and data according to their choice in a phenomenon known as card-stacking. They tend to display the positive side of their supported presidential candidates and emphasize the negative aspects of the opponents. No matter how good the performance of a candidate\'s debate, it will not have much effect on voters who already have a strong preference for one side.
In essence, the presidential and vice-presidential candidates and their campaign teams must be aware of the importance of the debate. The presidential election battle, with just weeks to go, clearly limits the ability of candidates to greet hundreds of millions of voters directly. The debate that is broadcast widely by television will be an important instrument to convey the vision and mission and work programs of the two candidate pairs to the public.
(Burhanuddin Muhtadi, Lecturer in Political Sciences at FISIP of Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University and Executive Director of Indikator Politik Indonesia)
