In a political environment of extreme polarization, productive political debate can help to bridge dissenting views. However, research suggests that Americans misperceive how frequently debate occurs between candidates and their constituents. This may, in turn, negatively impact political engagement. This study aims to understand the nature of this misperception and its consequences for democratic expression.
Until recently, debates in the United States were organized and hosted by the Citizens’ Debate Commission (CDP). The CPD is an independent sponsor that aims to be voter-centric in defining participants, format, and rules of a debate. The CPD is responsible for selecting candidates to participate based on objective criteria, including national newsworthiness and competitiveness, the ability to win Electoral College votes, and other factors.
CPD debates also seek to maximize time and attention on the candidates, with a limited number of questions per candidate and limited interruptions by the moderator. In recent years, the CPD has experimented with formats to promote productive discussion, such as muting a candidate’s microphone when they are not speaking and the use of a studio audience with the candidates in the room together.
To address the question of whether the frequency of debate in America is misperceived, we recruited nearly 3,000 U.S. adults to answer two open-text questions about debates they had observed in their daily lives. The first asked them to report how many times they had observed a debate in the previous month. The second asked them to self-report how often they expected to engage in a debate with their friends or coworkers in the next month. The figure below displays the results of these two questions.