By Jennifer Stromer-Galley
Presidential debates give the public a chance to hear in the candidates’ own words their positions on the pressing challenges facing our country. The country is facing a profound economic recession and deep unemployment in critical sectors in the country. Late last week we crossed over the threshold of 200,000 deaths from COVID-19. Learning Biden’s and Trump’s visions for the future are critical, now more than ever. Unfortunately, the post-debate analysis was unanimous: the public did not get to hear in depth how Trump and Biden will tackle the pressing issues.
Our team at the Illuminating 2020 project analyzed Biden’s and Trump’s messaging in their Facebook and Instagram ads on the issues. Our curiosity was whether the public could glean some understanding of the two candidates’ policies in their ads. Our analysis suggests that Biden, in particular, is less likely to share his policy positions in his ads. He is more likely to emphasize his character and personality and to attack Trump.
My own theory as to why Biden may not be sharing his policy positions widely is that Biden has been running as the ‘anti-Trump’ candidate, emphasizing his judgment and moral character. He also faced a wide field of challengers in the primaries, most of whom were to the left of him in terms of policy. Biden has long been a moderate on the political issues, and in order to hold the big tent, he strategically needs to remain vague on policy in order to keep the Democratic base behind him.
Time will tell whether a new debate format and the last month of advertisements will help the public better understand the presidential candidates’ policy positions on the crises that confront our nation.
All data is accurate as of date of publication. All spending and impression amounts are estimates based on data provided by the Facebook Ad Library API. Featured photo by Dalton Caraway on Unsplash