Debates that Changed U.S. History
Three presidential elections that were significantly impacted by a debate
There is a big presidential debate on tap tonight. And when I say “big,” that might be underselling it. The presidential race, as of today, is about as close to a toss-up as is possible. And, according to recent polling, about 70 percent of Americans plan to tune in to tonight’s event, with a sizeable 30 percent of voters saying the debate will play a significant role in determining how they cast their ballot in November.
So, yeah, no pressure.
It’s true that presidential debates don’t often impact the outcome of an election. After all, Hillary Clinton was widely judged by voters as the winner of all three of her 2016 debates against Donald Trump, yet she still narrowly lost the election. But there are also times when a debate does seem to have a considerable impact on the vote.
So, in advance of tonight’s faceoff between Trump and Kamala Harris, I thought it’d be interesting to look at three other presidential debates that did have an outsized influence on campaigns and were perhaps the most consequential such moments in debate history.
1960: John Kennedy and Richard Nixon.
The rise of television introduced a new element to presidential elections in 1960: Debates. When John Kennedy and Richard Nixon agreed to four debates during that year’s campaign, it marked a new moment in American politics as it was the first time voters could see the main contenders for the presidency on a stage together.
And Americans tuned in, with two-thirds of the adult population watching the first debate. Interestingly, candidates had eight-minutes (!) for their opening statements and two-and-a-half minutes to respond to each question. Today, candidates are typically restricted to a single minute for their statements and responses. Apparently, our attention spans have waned in the last six decades.
The first debate broadcast in 1960 is the one that is most remembered today. It’s also the one most responsible for impacting that year’s election. On TV screens across the country, Kennedy came across as cool and confident, while Nixon was seen as somewhat tired or sickly. Nixon wasn’t helped by the beads of sweat that were visible on his face at times. A headline the next day in the New York Times read: “Most Viewers Call Kennedy the ‘Winner’ – Many Say Nixon Looked Unwell.”1
What’s fascinating is that radio listeners that night thought the candidates were evenly matched, but Kennedy was judged the winner by those who watched the event on television (which was, of course, a much larger number). The next three debates were more of a draw, perhaps because the candidates really were evenly matched and Nixon had learned some lessons about improving his appearance by wearing makeup or making sure the studio temperature was cooler. But Kennedy’s debate success spurred new interest in his campaign and he began attracting larger and more enthusiastic crowds.
After the election, one poll suggested the debates were a deciding factor for 6% of voters. Of that segment, 72% supported Kennedy. And let’s remember, Kennedy only won the popular vote in 1960 by 49.7 - 49.6%, or 112,000 votes out of nearly 69 million ballots. He won the Electoral College by 303-219 on the basis of narrow victories in multiple states. So it’s entirely possible (likely, even) that his performance in the debate provided Kennedy with his winning margin in the 1960 election.
This is one of the reasons we didn’t have another debate until 1976. Nixon was on the ballot in two of the next three elections (1968 and 1972) and wasn’t keen for a repeat of his 1960 experience. So it wasn’t until 1976 that Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter agreed to revive the debates. These faceoffs have now taken place in every presidential election since.
1980: Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter.
In 1980, Ronald Reagan won the presidency after prevailing in the the popular vote by 51-41% over Jimmy Carter (with independent candidate John Anderson at 7%) and by by 489-49 in the Electoral College. The size of his victory has led many people in the years since to assume that Reagan led the contest by a large margin for the entire campaign.
But what’s often lost to history is that the 1980 election was actually quite a close contest for much of the summer and fall. It only turned conclusively in Reagan’s direction at the very end. Carter held his own in the polls for the entire campaign, due both to voter reluctance to oust an incumbent and uncertainty about the conservative Reagan.
But two events, in particular, propelled late-deciding voters to break decisively for Reagan and provide him with his margin of victory.
One of those events was the debate between Reagan and Carter. There was only one debate between the two contenders that year. It took place October 28, just one week before election day. About 81 million voters watched the event, which is still the second most viewed debate ever (behind the first 2016 faceoff between Trump and Clinton).
Most observers thought Carter was well-prepared and did a decent enough job during the debate, but Reagan also held his own and came across as likeable and reassuring, looking nothing like the conservative radical he was sometimes portrayed as. The debate, in fact, might have been seen as a draw if not for Reagan’s genial personality and skill in tossing off trenchant one-liners.
The most famous line from the debate came during the closing remarks, when Reagan devastated Carter with one question: "Are you better off now than you were four years ago?” You can see a one-minute clip of Reagan’s remarks in the video above.
This debate — and especially this question — changed the vibe in the country almost immediately. Many voters decided they could, after all, be OK with Reagan as president.
This wasn’t the only event that crushed Carter at the end of the 1980 campaign. In a cruel twist of irony, Election Day was the one-year anniversary of the storming of the Iranian embassy and the taking of American hostages. Across the country, television screens were awash in stories about the event, as Republicans issued warnings that Iran was about to free the hostages to help Carter because they wanted “a weak and manageable U.S. president.”2 This wasn’t actually true, but the narrative about the hostage crisis damaged Carter at an inopportune time.
These twin events, Reagan’s debate performance and the hostage anniversary, helped swing the electorate toward Reagan in the final days before voters went to the polls. In the course of a week or so, Reagan went from having a modest lead of about 3% in the Gallup poll to winning a landslide victory.
2024: Donald Trump and Joe Biden.
This last debate, of course, happened less than three months ago. But it’s responsible for one of the most dramatic turn of events in any presidential election ever.
President Joe Biden suggested an early debate in June because he wanted to turn the attention of the electorate toward the mercurial nature of Trump’s candidacy. It was a gamble that backfired on Biden spectacularly. In fact, a shaky performance by the octogenarian Biden reinforced for voters their concerns about his age and ability to serve as president for another four years. (The above video shows five moments from that debate.)
In the aftermath of the debate, Biden’s polling numbers cratered. Democrats became concerned that Biden was on track for a convincing defeat that would not only re-elect Trump but would bring numerous Senate and House candidates down with him. Since the debate took place before the Democratic convention had named a nominee, party leaders persuaded Biden to step away from the race. Which is what led to Vice President Kamala Harris replacing Biden atop the Democratic ticket.
It remains to be seen whether Harris can or will win the 2024 election, but there’s no doubt that this one debate will go down as one of the most significant in history for the simple fact that it knocked an incumbent president out of the race.
This essay was written for Substack, but parts of it were adapted from my book, Quest for the Presidency: The Storied and Surprising History of Presidential Campaigns in America (Lincoln, Nebraska: Potomac Books/University of Nebraska Press, 2022).
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Gary A. Donaldson, The First Modern Campaign: Kennedy, Nixon, and the Election of 1960 (Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 2007), 118.
Julian E. Zelizer, Jimmy Carter (New York: Times Books, 2010), 120.
That’s a good selection of debates to highlight. It will be interesting to see how history sees the final Biden-Trump debate.