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The Effect of Televised Candidate Debates on the Support for Political Parties

  • During campaigns for legislative elections, a large portion of the general public follows televised debates between the front-running candidates. How can the candidates use the public interest in the debates to increase the support for their party? In this article, we argue that especially challenger candidates can improve the public perception of their valence qualities, such as personal integrity, leadership, and competence, and can - as a result - improve the support of their parties. We expect the perceived policy stances of the candidates to matter less, as parties often already have well-defined policy profiles that matter to voters. Building on televised debate experiments during the German Federal Elections of 2009 and 2013, we analyse the effect of the debates on party vote and in how far this relationship is mediated by changes in valence and policy evaluations of the candidates. Results show that changes of candidate valence, but not changes in policy perceptions, of the social-democratic front-running candidates mediate the vote intention for the party. Respondents who perceived the candidates more competent, empathetic and have integrity as a result of the debate are more likely to vote for their party. Our analysis further reveals, however, that this valence effect does not carry-over to vote intention briefly before the election.

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Metadaten
Document Type:Working Paper
Language:English
Author(s):Korinna LindemannORCiD, Lukas F. Stoetzer
Publication year:2024
Publishing Institution:Hertie School
Number pages:72
DOI:https://doi.org/10.48462/opus4-5438
Release Date:2024/05/22
Licence of document (German):Creative Commons - CC BY-NC-ND - Namensnennung - Nicht kommerziell - Keine Bearbeitungen 4.0 International
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