In the past, a very important event that affects voting is the first debate. Research suggests that voter reactions of TV viewers are influenced by how the live audience, moderators and commentators react who are present at the debate. Who attends the debate and how they behave toward the candidates’ answers is therefore very important in determining who is perceived throughout the country as winning or losing the debate.
The first debate is at Hofstra University, Hempstead, NY on September 26, 2016. How will the audience be determined? The Commission on Presidential Debates gives out all tickets. Who gets the tickets? One source says “Tickets for each debate are controlled by the hosting university and are extremely limited since the debates are primarily produced for television. The majority of tickets are distributed to host university students and faculty through a lottery system.” Another source says “All tickets allocated to Hofstra University from the Commission on Presidential Debates will be distributed via lottery to current students in the days before the debate…”
A certain number, apparently all of them, goes to Hofstra University, which will use a lottery to distribute them. Certainly a majority goes to university students and faculty. Because the student body at large has certain characteristics, a lottery is going to result in a selection that represents those characteristics. Having looked at the makeup of the Hofstra student body, my judgment is that there will be a significant bias in favor of Clinton. As for the faculty who are in the audience, a number of studies show that professors who vote Democratic far outnumber those who vote Republican. Clinton is going to have a friendly audience via the Hofstra tickets.
Before going further, I cannot help but interject what a laughable proposition it is for the U.S. government to portray itself as the promoter of democracy in the world when every aspect of the democratic process in America is so pitifully flawed. The manipulations of the Democratic National Committee experienced by the Sanders campaign, from the voting thievery on down, are but a recent example of only one portion of the process. The only unflawed part of the process is that a majority of Americans who could vote do not vote for the winning candidate for president. This shows significant disaffection with the entire process, but this plus is immediately negated by the fact that it is totally ignored by whoever wins.
Now I am pointing out that the location of the first debate, which is a nontrivial event, is biased in favor of Clinton because nation-wide reactions are socially influenced by reactions of those present; and the local TV audience is very likely to be biased in favor of Clinton.
Another source of bias is that the commentators are biased. The event is covered by “C-SPAN, ABC, CBS, FOX and NBC, as well as all cable news channels including CNN, Fox News and MSNBC among others.” Its personnel have a statist orientation. They have already displayed a strong anti-Trump bias. The result is another factor favoring Clinton.
However you slice it, most Hofstra tickets are going to students and faculty, and this is going to produce significant bias in favor of Clinton in the first debate. Add to that the media bias and the influential audience-reaction deck is stacked against Trump.
11:23 am on July 26, 2016
