Moreover, what effects do exist are often caused by factors wholly beyond the candidates’ control, like media coverage, attractiveness, and whether voters are watching a Nats game in the other panel of their TV. They asked 74 voters to watch the debate and say who they thought won. Ohio State’s Ray Pingree, Lousiana State’s Rosanne Scholl and Ohio State’s Andrea Quenette showed 700 students a five-minute clip from a 2004 debate. A third read no news coverage, a third read “horse-race” coverage that framed the debate as a competition between the candidates, and a third read substantive coverage focused on the candidates’ policy differences. Pingree and his coauthors then asked the students to write out a description of the debate.

Source: Huffington Post September 23, 2016 19:07 UTC