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Do presidential debates matter? Evidence from aCentral and Eastern European Context
Costin CiobanuMcGill University
August 31, 2017
Abstract
This paper analyses the effects of the 2014 presidential debates on vote intentions in
Romania. Although there are good theoretical reasons to expect presidential debates
to matter in Central and Eastern European countries, the paper demonstrates that
presidential debates only have a significant effect on the second-round vote choice of
first-round thwarted voters and first-round non-voters. Exposure to the debates also
increases the probability that a voter will form a second-round vote intention. The
debates have little impact on those who had voted in the first round for the candidates
who qualified for the run-off; for this subset of voters, the role of the debates seems to be
one of reinforcing previous beliefs and behaviours. On the other hand, there is strong
support for the thesis that voters are more likely to say they will vote for the candidate
whom they perceive to have won the presidential debates. The paper calls for more
research on the role of presidential debates to be conducted in Central and Eastern
European democracies (comparatively or in different electoral years) and in countries
with two-ballot electoral systems, which experience different dynamics than the United
States.
Keywords: Impact of debates, Central and Eastern Europe, Romania, Presidential
elections, Voting behaviour, Media effects, Two-round elections.
1 Introduction
Do presidential debates matter for the outcome of elections? Do they influence vote
choice or have they simply become a new form of political entertainment with little electoral
impact? Given the lack of research, answers to these questions cannot be provided for
young democracies, such as those of Central and Eastern Europe. The situation is different
for mature democracies, where these questions have been studied since the first Kennedy -
Nixon presidential debate (Chaffee, 1978; Hall – Jamieson et al., 1988; Schrott, 1990; Blais
& Boyer, 1996; Schroeder, 2008; Gerstle, 2008).
Although there have been instances where the presidential debates have impacted the
outcome of the election (for example, the 2000 US election), the overall consensus is that
presidential debates have a weak influence on vote choice (Holbrook, 1996). This is generally
due to the importance of longer-term structural variables over short-term campaign factors
(Schrott & Lanoue, 2013) as well as the methodological difficulties of estimating debate
effects (Erikson & Wlezien, 2012). To address the lack of knowledge of debate effects in
young democracies, this paper analyses the impact of the two televised presidential debates
that took place between the first and second rounds of the 2014 Romanian presidential
election. The paper draws on survey data to examine whether exposure to the debate and
perceptions of who won had a significant effect on vote intentions and, more generally, on
the outcome of the election.
Typical of young democracies in Central and Eastern Europe, the Romanian electoral
context is characterized by weak ideological identities and partisan attachments, with few
voters having a deeply socialized party identification. This means that voters’ evaluations
of the candidates’ debate performances are less likely to be biased and consequently debate
effects could be expected to be stronger than those observed in the United States and other
established post-industrial democracies. This seems especially likely given the large number
of undecided voters and the fact that the second of the two debates took place only four
days before the second-round vote and would thus not be subject to decay. Moreover, the
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two-ballot electoral system, adopted by Romania and other countries in the region, creates
dynamics that do not exist in most major Western democracies (such as the US, Germany
and Canada). The existence of thwarted voters and first-round non-voters increases the
potential for presidential debates to be more influential in these new democracies. The
paper will explore whether these expectations are confirmed by empirical tests.
I start by presenting the literature on the impact of presidential debates, highlighting
the lack of research on new democracies, such as those of Central and Eastern Europe.
After introducing the hypotheses to be tested, I describe the context of the 2014 Romanian
presidential elections. The next section describes the data and measures as well as the model
specifications. After presenting the findings, the paper concludes with a discussion of the
implications and future research directions.
2 Assessing debate effects
Scholars in North America and Western Europe have devoted a good deal of attention
to the effects of face-to-face televised debates between contenders for top political office.
As McKinney (2008) notes, presidential debates are viewed as “one of the most important
forms of campaign communication by the public, political candidates, and the media, as well
as by political communication scholars” (p. 59). McKinney and Carlin (2004) distinguish
four types of presidential debate effects: behavioural, cognitive, latent, and candidate image
evaluation effects. Behavioural effects refer to whether exposure to the debate influences a
citizen’s vote choice. An important distinction in this respect, with important methodological
consequences (Prior, 2012), is made between direct and indirect behavioural effects: the
former refer to those who watched the debates and the latter to those who were exposed
(through media coverage or personal networks, for example) to discussions about the debates.
Cognitive effects are related to the idea that the debates facilitate viewers’ acquisition of issue
knowledge by familiarizing them with the candidates’ positions. When it comes to candidate
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image evaluation effects, scholars are interested in discovering whether “debate exposure
influences viewer perceptions of candidate character or image traits.” Finally, latent effects
occur when exposure to the candidates’ performance in the debates activates the “citizens’
various civic and democratic tendencies” (McKinney, 2008, p. 164).
Debate effects are dependent on the specific dynamics of the campaign and on the political
profile of debate viewers. Chaffee (1978, p. 342) identifies four conditions for the debates to
have an effect on vote choice: “(a) at least one of the candidates is not well known, (b) many
voters are undecided, (c) the contest appears to be a close one, and (d) party allegiances are
weak”. However, further research has shown that reality is more complex: “debates change
public opinion to the extent that one candidate’s performance is so clearly superior that
even many of those who oppose him must acknowledge the reality of his victory” (Schrott
& Lanoue, 2013, p. 691).
Based on their analysis of American presidential debates, McKinney & Warner (2013,
p. 256) concluded that, “campaign debates do indeed matter, and our analysis of ‘the
trans-campaign effects on such matters as voting behaviour, image formation, and attitude
change’ has allowed us to understand just how debate effects function in several important
ways”. However, the general conclusion with respect to behavioural effects is that, at least
in the American context, “little change in voting intentions is typically recorded following
exposure to debates” (McKinney, 2008, p. 164). Analysing studies conducted on presidential
debates, Schroeder (2008) concludes that presidential debates change perceptions (related,
for example, to issue knowledge, the character traits of the candidates, or the stakes of the
election) rather than voting intentions; in the end, despite their audience, the debates are
only one of the potential factors influencing the vote.
The limited impact reflects the importance of longer-term structural variables over cam-
paign factors (Schrott & Lanoue, 2013) as well as the methodological difficulties of estimating
debate effects (Erikson & Wlezien, 2012). Holbrook (1996, p. 114) argues that campaign
events have a weaker influence than longer-term factors: “the perception of most viewers are
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coloured by their political predispositions going into the debate...the single best predictor
of which candidate a viewer thought won a given debate is that viewer’s pre-debate vote
choice”.
Assessing behavioural effects is as complicated as assessing campaign effects in general.
According to Wlezien (2010), two main problems arise. On the one hand, “the effects of
most campaign events are very small” (p. 110). On the other hand, “our ability to detect
campaign effects is limited” (p. 110). Based on their study of US presidential elections from
1952 to 2008, Erikson & Wlezien (2012) conclude that, “it is very difficult to estimate the
effects of some seemingly big events, such as presidential debates. We can measure voter
preferences in trial-heat polls before a debate and compare it to those reported in polls a
few days after...however, much ‘change’ we observe in surveys is simply the natural result of
sampling error...Rarely can we point to a campaign event and say that it made a difference
of a size and duration that can be identified in the polls” (p. 12). Schroeder (2008) goes
further, arguing that it is practically impossible to isolate the debates’ effects on vote choice
from other influences.
If debates are understood as a particular type of campaign event, assessing their impact
on vote intentions is equivalent to determining whether they are part of a stationary series
(the decay of effects is observed) or of an integrated series (the accumulation of effects is
demonstrated) (Wlezien & Erikson, 2000). The difficulty in evaluating their impact is only
increased by the fact that, to use Wlezien & Erikson’s (2000) terminology, some events may
cause a “bounce” (a stationary series) and others a “bump” (an integrated series), while yet
other events may cause preferences to move and then bounce back, but to a level different
from before. This aspect highlights the difficulty of capturing the indirect impact of the
debates and demonstrates the importance of contextual factors – the longer the temporal
distance between the vote and the event, the harder it is to identify its contribution to the
outcome. All in all, without proper attention to these issues, this complex environment
undermines even weak causality claims about the impact of presidential debates.
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Despite these serious limitations, various methodologies have been used to analyse whether
exposure to debates and evaluations of the candidates’ performance affect vote choice. What
is important to highlight is how dependent on the institutional context these methodologies
are. It matters a lot whether the debate is between party leaders, presidential candidates,
or candidates for Chancellor.
Using individual-level data, Blais & Boyer (1996) investigate whether the debates between
the party leaders influenced the outcome of the 1988 Canadian federal election. They propose
four research designs, each of which poses some methodological difficulties. The first is a
cross-sectional group comparison that looks at the voting behaviour of those who did and
those who did not see the debates. The ex-post cross-sectional group comparison can, with
the appropriate controls, indicate the net direct impact of the debates; however, as the
authors acknowledge, in the presence of potential substantial indirect effects, the approach
will underestimate the real total impact. The second design is a panel analysis, in which
the vote intentions of debate watchers and non-watchers are compared before and after
the debates. Like the previous design, this research design cannot deal appropriately with
the issue of indirect effects. The third approach is a panel reactions analysis, with the
debates being deemed to have an impact if support for the party increased among those
who considered that the party leader had won the debate and decreased among those who
thought that a different leader had won. Although it has the advantage of capturing indirect
effects, the design is vulnerable to the question of whether the debate’s impact on the vote
is entirely channelled through perceptions about the debate winner (Blais & Boyer, 1996, p.
147). The fourth design is a time-series analysis, which consists of looking at the movement of
vote intentions during the campaign and determining if the debates affected that movement.
Even though any shift in voting intentions during the campaign can be influenced by other
events, this research design is considered the most logical and “the most appropriate design
to tap the impact of debates” (Blais & Boyer, 1996, p. 147). The authors highlight how
important the research design is in assessing the behavioural impact of the debates: the first
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two designs seem to indicate no debate impact, while the panel reaction and the time-series
analyses demonstrate that the debates had a “substantial and enduring impact on the vote
and that they were decisive in the contest for second place between the Liberals and the
NDP” (p. 143).
Lanoue (1991) also investigates the impact of party leader debates on voting behaviour.
Using three probit models, he estimates the likelihood of voting for each of the three federal
parties in the 1984 Canadian election based on exposure to the debate, while controlling
for factors such as age, education, income, gender, and party identification. The study
demonstrates the importance of appropriate controls in isolating the impact of the leadership
debates. With respect to the impact of the debates, the paper goes against the traditional
idea that national debates mostly reinforce the viewers’ prior preferences; it argues that
the debates had a significant effect on voting behaviour, with the impact being especially
strong among French-speaking Canadians. The debates favoured the candidate most fluent
in French.
Schrott (1990) uses pre- and post-debate panel data to examine whether the debates that
took place between the party leaders in three West German federal elections (1972, 1976,
and 1983) had an effect on vote choice. Like Lanoue, Schrott estimates a probit model,
with individual vote choice as the dependent variable. Two models are compared: the first
model has party identification and pre-debate evaluations of party leaders as the independent
variables while the second model adds evaluations of the debate winner. The conclusion is
that the latter variables increase the goodness-of-fit of the model.
In their aggregate-level analysis1 of 26 U.S. presidential debates, Schrott & Lanoue (2013)
assess the impact of debate performance (as measured by the percentage of those indicating
the candidate as winner) by first establishing a baseline expectation of success. Their starting
assumption is that “many of the factors that influence viewers’ assessments of winners and
losers are exogenous to the content of the debates themselves” (p. 685). Their OLS model,
1 The authors look at the percentage of Gallup respondents naming a candidate as the debate winner in26 US presidential debates.
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which incorporates only long-term factors (such as pre-existing candidate preferences, party
identification, and attitudes toward the incumbent administration), shows that “pre-existing
factors having nothing at all to do with the actual performance of the candidates make up
more than 50% of the measure that we typically use to identify the winners and losers of
presidential debates” (p. 687). Like Lanoue (1991), Schrott and Lanoue emphasise the role
of exogenous factors and the need to control for them in order to tease out the impact of
debates.
The typical conclusion of these North American and Western European studies is that
the impact of debates on vote intentions is minimal. However, given the lack of research,
it is not known whether the same conclusion holds for new democracies. Theoretically, we
could expect stronger debate effects than have been observed in established post-industrial
democracies.
First, the low degree of party system institutionalisation in Central and Eastern Europe,
which is evident in greater electoral volatility, non-programmatic and non-ideological linkages
between voters and parties, and personalistic voting (Mainwaring & Torcal, 2006), implies
that party identification will not be as important as in mature democracies and will not serve
as a “perceptual screen” (Campbell et. al, 1960), when evaluating debate performance. Since
the roots of political parties are not deep, one would expect that the effect of the debates
on voters would not be contaminated by such partisan influences. Second, the presence of a
high number of undecided voters at the end of campaigns increases the likelihood that the
debates will matter (this was established by Chaffee (1978) in the case of the US presidential
debates).
Third, the institutional context might enhance the impact of the debates. For example,
two-ballot elections are the norm in Central and Eastern European presidential elections
and the debates usually take place during the two weeks between the first round and the
run-off. Consequently, the existence of first-round non-voters and thwarted voters who need
to choose a second-round candidate opens up the possibility that debates are decisive for
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the fate of presidential candidates (the traditional media frame). In the Unites States,
Canada and Germany, countries where extensive research has been conducted on the role
of televised debates, the national elections have only one round and so the potential impact
on thwarted voters and first-round non-voters has been overlooked. Given the widespread
use of two-ballot elections in Romania and other Central and Eastern European countries,
it is important to analyse the impact of debates on these categories of voters. This major
institutional difference could explain why American, Canadian and German findings may
not hold under different electoral rules. This paper will pay particular attention to the
influence of exposure to debates on the voting behaviour of thwarted voters, first-round
non-voters, and undecided (compared to decided) voters. It will then be possible to assess
how generalizable findings about the weak effects of televised debates are in representative
democracies.
Based on these theoretical expectations, we can hypothesize that:
H1: Voters who are exposed to presidential debates will be more likely to change their vote
intentions.
H2: Exposure to presidential debates will have a significant impact on the vote intentions of
thwarted voters and first-round non-voters.
H3: Exposure to the debates increases the likelihood that a voter will form a second-round
vote intention.
H4: Voters are more likely to say they will vote for the candidate whom they perceive to have
won the presidential debates.
3 The 2014 Romanian presidential election
These hypotheses will be tested using the case of the debates in the 2014 Romanian
presidential election. This is the first study in the region to look at the behavioural effects of
presidential debates. The results have the potential to generalize to other countries in Central
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and Eastern Europe. In addition to the fact that these countries share fundamental political
similarities with Romania in their transitions from Communism to democracy (Grzymala-
Busse, 2007), many of them also have presidents directly elected in two-ballot systems, in
which the run-off takes place two weeks after the first round (this is the case, for example,
in Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Croatia, and Bulgaria, as well as Romania). The
constitutional role and symbolic prestige enjoyed by presidents in the region transforms
the presidential elections into first-order elections. Moreover, as in Romania, the debates
typically take place only a couple of days before the final vote, which minimizes the potential
decay of effects. Thus, the Romanian case can be taken as typical of the region in terms of
the likely behavioural effects of presidential debates.
The Romanian electoral system for the presidential elections is very similar to the French
one. If no candidate wins the majority of the votes in the first round, a second round is
organised on the second Sunday following the first vote. The 2014 presidential elections
were necessarily “change elections” since the right-wing incumbent President Basescu was
not allowed to run due to constitutional provisions that limit the number of terms to two2. On
2 November, Romanians went to polls to elect their new President. The main favourites to
become the Eastern European country’s fourth head of state were incumbent Prime Minister
Victor Ponta, leader of the left-wing Social-Democratic Party (PSD), and Klaus Iohannis,
one of the leaders of the right-wing alliance between the National-Liberal Party (PNL) and
the Liberal-Democratic Party (PDL). In the context of a 53.17% turnout (which included
Romanians residing abroad), Victor Ponta obtained 40.44% of the first-round votes, while his
main opponent got 30.37%; no other candidates obtained more than 6%. Two weeks later,
on November 16th, benefiting from a surge in electoral participation3 (64.1% turnout), Klaus
2 Gherghina (2015) provides a detailed account of the electoral context in terms of the electoral system,the candidates, manifestos, and the development of the campaign.
3 The government’s poor organisation of the vote in the countries with large Romanian communities(Spain, Italy, France, Germany, and United Kingdom) captured the attention of the media on November2nd. As more than 3 million Romanians work and live abroad, people had to queue for hours before voting,because of the small number of available polling stations and other bureaucratic requirements. Only 161,054Romanians from the Diaspora voted in the first round, leaving tens of thousands unable to have their say.This had political and electoral consequences: The Foreign Affairs Minister resigned, the Prime Minister
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Table 1: Exposure to the two presidential debates
Presidential debateAudience share
(Total active TV owners, ARMA)Exposure to the debate
(Total Population, Sociopol Survey)
First debate 33.1% 63.5%Second debate 20.9% 53%
Iohannis caused a huge upset and won the elections with 54.43% of the votes, becoming the
first elected president of Romania belonging to a national minority.
Between the first and second rounds, two face-to-face presidential debates were organised.
The Realitatea TV news channel hosted the first debate on 11 November (five days before
the second-round vote and three days before the official end of the campaign) and the B1TV
news channel hosted the second debate the next day on 12 November (four days before
the run-off and two days before the official end of the campaign). The debates attracted a
considerable number of viewers, according to both audience studies and surveys (see Table
1).
Figure 1 compares vote intentions for the two candidates who qualified for the run-
off based on four Sociopol surveys conducted between the two rounds (see Appendix A
for information about the methodology of the polls). It is clear that there was a good
deal of variation in vote intentions for the two candidates, Ponta and Iohannis, and a lot
of uncertainty. What is more interesting is that the 95% confidence intervals associated
with vote intentions overlap in both the second and fourth surveys, which were conducted
immediately before and after the debates. This was clearly a very tight race in which the
presidential debates, with their high audience, had the potential to decisively impact the
result.
pledged to better organise the vote (the turnout of Romanians residing outside the country in the secondround was 378,811), and the right-wing candidate used the debacle as his main line of attack against Ponta.
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Figure 1: The evolution of vote intentions (with 95% confidence intervals) between the firstand second rounds of the 2014 presidential elections (5 – 14 November, Sociopol surveys)
4 Data and Measures
The hypotheses will be tested using data from the survey conducted by the Romanian
polling institute Sociopol in the two days following the second presidential debate (13 – 14
November 2014). The survey sample size was 833 and the response rate 25%4; the method
of data collection was Computer-Assisted Telephone Interviewing (CATI). The sample was
weighted based on the 2012 Statistical Yearbook to be representative of the adult population
of Romania in terms of sex, age, ethnicity, region, and city size. More technical information
about the survey is available in Appendix A.
The dependent variable is based on the answers to two questions. The first is a typical
vote choice question: “Victor Ponta and Klaus Iohannis qualified for the second round of the
4 Per the Sociopol experts, this represents the total response rate; it includes not only the persons whorefused to answer, but also the unallocated phone numbers, the respondents who were not home when thesurvey participation call was made, and the persons who were not considered when the weighting took place.
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Romanian presidential elections. Which of these two candidates would you vote for?” Only
68.8% of the respondents expressed a vote intention for one of the two candidates, reflecting
the high number of undecided voters only two days before the vote (for descriptive statistics,
see Appendix B). To increase the number of those who had a vote intention, I employ the
answers to a follow-up question for those who answered that they would not vote or that
they did not know or had not answered (N=260), asking: “In any case, which of the two do
you consider the best to be the next President of Romania: Ponta or Iohannis? Including
these leaning voters, the percentage of respondents with a vote intention increases to 78.9%
of the sample (N=657). 51.8% expressed a vote intention for Ponta and 48.2% for Iohannis,
underlining again the closeness of the race. To control for possible differences between those
who expressed a vote intention and the leaning voters, a dummy variable (“Leaners”), coded
1 for leaning voters and 0 otherwise, is included in the regression models.
The dependent variable for the first hypothesis is represented by a binary variable that
registers whether the respondent’s vote choice has changed since the first round. It is scored 1
for vote change and 0 otherwise; 37.9% (N=249) of respondents changed their vote intention
between the two rounds – this includes not only those who switched between the candidates
qualified for the run-off, but also those who voted for other candidates in the first round
and those who did not vote in the first round. For the second, third, and fourth hypotheses,
second-round vote intention (coded 1 for voting Iohannis, 0 for voting Ponta) is the outcome
variable.
For my first, second, and third hypotheses, I use two survey questions5 about exposure
to the first and second debates to construct my main independent variable. Based on these
5 The exact wording of the first question and the possible answers are the following: “The day beforeyesterday evening, Tuesday 11 November 2014, the first presidential debate between Klaus Iohannis andVictor Ponta took place. The debate was broadcast on television, but also on the Internet. Did you watchthe debate? Yes, entirely; Yes, partially; No; Do not know/Do not answer”. The second question has thesame wording, but refers to the debate organised on Wednesday, 12 November 2014. When I collapsed thecategories and built the new debate exposure variable for each debate, those who watched the debate entirelyor partly were grouped in the “yes” category, those who did not watch are placed in the “no” category, whilethe respondents who did not know or did not answer were excluded from the analysis. Note that there is noway to distinguish between those who did not know and those who did not answer.
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questions, I create a variable that counts the number of debates each respondent was exposed
to6. Overall, 22.4% watched none of the debates, 21.9% only one and 55.7% both.
For the fourth hypothesis, the main independent variable is the perception of who won
or lost the first and second presidential debates, respectively. For each debate, respondents
were asked: “Which of the two candidates seemed better, more convincing, more pertinent
in this debate: Iohannis or Ponta?”7. I created two variables which register, for each re-
spondent, how many debates were won by Ponta and how many by Iohannis8. Based on
this operationalisation, 62.5% of the sample included in the analysis (N=323)9 believed that
Iohannis won no debates, 15.5% only one debate and 22% both, while 35.5% considered that
Ponta won no debates, 11.4% only one and 53% both10.
As control variables, I employ age (continuous variable), sex (coded 1 for female, 0 for
male), and education (a categorical variable with three levels – primary education or less,
secondary education, and post-secondary education, with primary education serving as the
reference category; those who did not know or answer were excluded)11. These control
6 An alternative measurement option was to have two debate exposure dummy variables, correspondingto each debate. As a robustness check, I performed the analyses with these alternative operationalisations;the results were similar to those reported in the text, whether both dummies were included or only thedummy for the second debate. The results are available from the author.
7 For both debates, the exact wording of the question and the possible answers are the following: “Whichof the two candidates seemed better, more convincing, more pertinent in this debate: Iohannis or Ponta?Iohannis was much better than Ponta; Iohannis was slightly better than Ponta; Ponta was slightly betterthan Iohannis; Ponta was much better than Iohannis; both were as good in this debate; both were as weakin this debate; I did not watch the debate; Do not know/Do not answer.” In accordance with the standardpractice, the respondents who did not know or did not answer were excluded from the analysis.
8 A candidate is considered the winner of the debate if the respondent says that the contender was betteror slightly better than his opponent; otherwise, the variable for that candidate is coded 0. Those who did notwatch the debates are excluded from the analysis. As one can see from the wording of the survey question,only those who were directly exposed to the debate were asked to provide an answer; this means that thequestion captures only the direct effects of the debates (which is a limitation of the analysis) and representsa conservative assessment of the debates’ effect.
9 The explanation for this reduced sample size comes from the fact that the non-watchers were not askedwho won each debate; in addition, I dropped those who did not provide an answer about their educationlevel and their vote in the first round. In Section 5.2, I employ an alternative operationalisation of the mainindependent variables that increases the sample size and confirms the first results.
10 For the fourth hypothesis, I also tested an alternative operationalisation of the main independentvariable. I created one variable for each debate, which was scored 1 if Iohannis was better, 0 – if both wereas strong/weak or if the respondent did not know or did not answer, and -1 if Ponta was considered thewinner. This alternative operationalisation yields similar results (results available on request).
11 Another control variable that I considered was income (a categorical variable with three levels: lowincome, medium income, and high income). However, 49.6% of those expressing a vote intention did not
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variables have been highlighted in previous research on Romanian elections (Fesnic, 2010;
2012). Reported vote in the first-round is also included to guard against possible omitted
variable bias since a predisposition in favour of one or other candidate in the second round
could bias perceptions of debate performance. This is in line with the Michigan School
tradition (Campbell et al., 1960), which assumes that party identification has a major direct
and indirect impact on the vote. Reported vote in the first round is a categorical variable
with four levels: those who voted for Ponta, those who voted for Iohannis, those who voted
for other candidates12 and those who did not vote in the first round; the first-round non-
voters serve as the reference category and the respondents who did not know or answer are
excluded. Descriptive statistics for the dependent, main independent and control variables
are presented in Appendix B.
For the first hypothesis regarding debate exposure to be validated, the debate exposure
variable has to have a positive and significant effect on the probability of vote change (i.e.
a difference between the reported vote in the first round and the vote intention expressed
immediately after the two presidential debates). To get at the impact of debate exposure
on vote switching between the two main contenders, I also estimate a model restricted to
those who chose one of the two final candidates in the first round. To assess the second
hypothesis regarding the impact of debate exposure on helping respondents make up their
minds, I estimate another model for those who voted for another candidate or did not vote in
the first round. Finally, to evaluate the third hypothesis, I test a model where the dependent
variable distinguishes between those who had a vote intention for the second round and those
who did not and were still undecided. Given this specification, the debate exposure variable
provide an answer to this question (the DK/NA category). The share of missing data was simply too bigto employ multiple imputation. To deal with this issue, I also created three dummy variables: low income(1 for those reporting a low income, 0 for those with medium and high incomes and DK/NA answers);medium income (1 for medium income, 0 for those with low and high incomes and DK/NA answers); andmissing income (1 for those with DK/NA answers, 0 for the rest). When these variables were includedin the regression models, their effects did not even approach conventional levels of statistical significance.Accordingly, income can safely be excluded.
12 This coding was informed by the fact that, in the first round, there were 15 candidates running, withthe first two obtaining together more than 70% of the votes and the third gaining the support of only 5.36%of Romanians.
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would indicate whether the debates helped respondents to make up their minds.
For the fourth hypothesis, regarding the impact of the perceived debate winner on vote
intentions, the expectation is that respondents who consider one of the candidates to have
won the debate are more likely to vote for that candidate. Respondents who voted for other
candidates or did not vote at all in the first round are theoretically the most likely to be
influenced by the debates.
Given that I have binary dependent variables, I test my hypotheses using logistic re-
gression. Since the coefficients of logistic models are not directly interpretable, I estimate
predicted probabilities, using the observed values method (Hanmer & Kalkan, 2013). This
makes it possible to discuss the behavioural effects in a meaningful way.
5 Findings and discussion
5.1 The impact of debate exposure
The regression model displayed in Table 2 allows us to test the first hypothesis. Exposure
to the two presidential debates has a statistically significant effect on vote change (p-value
of 0.06), but the effect is negative. In other words, people who did not watch the debates
were more likely to switch votes than those who viewed them. The predicted probability
of vote change for non-watchers is 37%, compared with 32% for those who watched one of
the debates and 28% for those who watched both. While we cannot rule out the possibility
that committed voters were more likely to watch the debate given the research design we
are employing, a possible interpretation of the negative effect of debate watching is that the
presidential debates had a reinforcement effect, making those who watched them even more
likely to vote for their first round choice.
The reinforcement thesis was directly tested in the Sociopol survey. The survey asked
the respondents about the overall impact of the two debates on their vote behaviour13.
13 The exact wording of the question and the possible answers are the following: “Given the two TV
16
Table 2: The impact of exposure to the 2014 Romanian presidential debates on vote change
Vote Change Model
(Intercept) −0.24 (0.43)Woman −0.17 (0.19)Age −0.01 (0.01)∗
Education Secondary education 0.11 (0.29)Education Post-secondary education 0.57 (0.32)·
Leaners 1.01 (0.29)∗∗∗
Debate Exposure −0.23 (0.12)·
AIC 681.49BIC 711.88Log Likelihood −333.74Deviance 667.49Num. obs. 568
∗∗∗p < 0.001, ∗∗p < 0.01, ∗p < 0.05, ·p < 0.1
60.4% of the respondents reported that they experienced reinforcement of their previous vote
choice following the exposure to debates, while 39.6% reported no reinforcement. As can be
seen in Table 3, there is a statistically significant relationship between debate exposure and
self-reported reinforcement: only 23% of non-watchers experienced reinforcement (76.9%),
compared with 62% of respondents who watched only one debate and 75% of those exposed to
both debates. These results lend weight to the inference that the main role of the debates was
to reinforce existing vote choices, rather than provoking shifts and realignments. However,
this conclusion needs to be treated with caution, given people’s limited ability to report
reliably on their own motivations.
To further explore the vote change hypothesis and provide a more fine-grained analysis, I
estimated additional models for subsets of respondents. The first model displayed in Table 4
debates and the discussions that you heard on TV or had with your friends and family, what effect has thishad on your voting intention? Convinced me even more to vote for Iohannis, for whom I wanted to votepre-debate; Convinced me even more to vote for Ponta, for whom I wanted to vote pre-debate; Before thedebate I wanted to vote for Iohannis, but the debate convinced me to vote for Ponta; Before the debate Iwanted to vote for Ponta, but the debate convinced me to vote for Iohannis; It did not reinforce my existingconvictions, nor made me reconsider my choice; I believe it convinced me not to go to vote; I believe itconvinced me to go to vote. Before the debate I did not want to go to vote, but the debate convinced me togo to vote; Did not see the debate or any public comments about it; Do not know/Do not answer”.
17
Table 3: Voting behaviour reinforcement based on exposure to debates
No debates One debate Two debates TotalNo reinforcement 113 53 92 258
76.9% 37.6% 25.1%Reinforcement 34 88 274 396
23.1% 62.4% 74.9%Total 147 141 366 654
22.5% 21.6% 56%Chi2 = 117.8 d.f. = 2 p < .001
estimates the impact of exposure to the debates on the likelihood of voting for the right-wing
candidate in the second round. The sample is restricted to Ponta and Iohannis first-round
voters. The model includes reported vote in the first round, making it possible to look at
the impact of debate exposure on vote switching between Ponta and Iohannis. The results
show that, as expected, having voted for Iohannis in the first round (compared to having
voted for Ponta, which is the reference category) significantly increases the chance of voting
for Iohannis in the run-off. The coefficient for debate exposure is non-significant. In other
words, debate exposure had no effect on the probability of vote switching. Once again, this
points to reinforcement.
In order to see whether the effects of exposure differed depending on first-round reported
vote, I added an interaction term between the debate exposure variable and voting for
Iohannis in the first round to the model (see model 2 in Table 4). The positive sign of the
interaction term suggests that first-round Iohannis voters who watched the debates were
more likely to vote for Iohannis in the second round than non-watchers, but the interaction
term falls well short of conventional levels of statistical significance. Given the complexities
of interpreting interaction models (Brambor et al., 2005), I estimated marginal effects for
the interaction and its constituent terms. The results confirmed that exposure to debates
did not significantly influence vote switching between the two contenders.
The next model tests the second hypothesis. It considers only first-round thwarted voters
and non-voters. For this subsample, I am looking at the impact of exposure to the debates
18
Table 4: The impact of exposure to the 2014 Romanian presidential debates on the likelihoodof voting for Iohannis in the second round (Ponta and Iohannis first-round voters only inmodel 1 and 2; first-round thwarted voters and first-round non-voters in model 3)
M1 - Pontaand Iohannis voters
M2 - Pontaand Iohannis voters
M3 - Thwarted votersand non-voters
(Intercept) −0.13 (1.55) 0.25 (1.51) 1.07 (0.80)Woman −2.28 (1.14)∗ −2.25 (1.14)∗ −0.52 (0.34)Age −0.04 (0.02)· −0.04 (0.02)· −0.02 (0.01)∗
Education Secondary education −1.36 (1.11) −1.25 (1.11) 0.23 (0.54)Education Post-secondary education −1.42 (1.30) −1.36 (1.31) 0.58 (0.63)Leaners −1.52 (1.19) −1.44 (1.19) 0.33 (0.47)Vote R1 Iohannis 9.37 (1.29)∗∗∗ 8.15 (1.66)∗∗∗
Debate Exposure −0.18 (0.50) −0.70 (0.71) 0.33 (0.22)Vote R1 Iohannis : Debate Exposure 0.95 (0.95)Vote R1 Other Candidate −0.00 (0.35)
AIC 75.70 76.72 223.41BIC 107.68 112.69 248.31Log Likelihood −29.85 −29.36 −103.70Deviance 59.70 58.72 207.41Num. obs. 402 402 166
∗∗∗p < 0.001, ∗∗p < 0.01, ∗p < 0.05, ·p < 0.1
on the likelihood of voting for the right-wing candidate. As model 3 in Table 4 highlights, the
debate exposure variable has a positive effect on the probability of voting for Iohannis. The
effect of the debate exposure variable approaches conventional levels of statistical significance
(p-value =.12). Given the reduced sample size (N=166), this is a sign of the potential
role these high-audience media events played in helping first-round thwarted voters and
non-voters make a voting decision. This can be considered evidence for the relevance of
the televised debates for the voting behaviour of these particular categories of voters. The
predicted probability of voting for Iohannis was 65% for first-round thwarted voters and first-
round non-voters who watched both debates, compared with only 50% for non-watchers. For
first-round thwarted voters and first-round non-voters, exposure to the debates mattered, as
it increased their probability of voting for the right-wing candidate.
Finally, I estimated a model where the dependent variable indicated whether or not the
respondent had a vote intention for the second round; the variable is coded 1 if the respondent
19
Table 5: The impact of exposure to the 2014 Romanian presidential debates on having avote intention
Decided Voters Model
(Intercept) 1.47 (0.67)∗
Woman −0.45 (0.29)Age −0.01 (0.01)Education Secondary education −0.43 (0.44)Education Post-secondary education −0.56 (0.52)Vote R1 Ponta 2.55 (0.44)∗∗∗
Vote R1 Iohannis 3.22 (0.62)∗∗∗
Vote R1 Other Candidate 0.53 (0.34)Debate Exposure 0.43 (0.18)∗
AIC 351.73BIC 391.81Log Likelihood −166.87Deviance 333.73Num. obs. 635
∗∗∗p < 0.001, ∗∗p < 0.01, ∗p < 0.05, ·p < 0.1
is decided and 0 otherwise. This tests the third hypothesis. In this case, the goal is to test if
exposure to the presidential debates helped voters to decide their second-round vote. As we
can see in Table 5, watching the debates seems to have made respondents more likely to have
settled on their vote choice for the second round, though we cannot rule out the possibility
with cross-sectional data that committed voters were more likely to watch the debates. The
predicted probability of being decided is 84% for non-watchers, compared with 92% for those
who watched both debates. Clearly, exposure to the debates mattered in terms of deciding
whom to vote for in the second round – a validation of the third hypothesis.
At this point, the various analyses have shown that the first hypothesis can only be
partially accepted, while the second and third ones are fully supported. Exposure to the
debates seemed to help people make up their mind in relation to the second-round vote. For
first-round thwarted voters and first-round non-voters, exposure to debates mattered, as it
increased their probability of voting for the right-wing candidate. The debates also helped
respondents form a vote intention for the run-off. However, the debates mattered for those
20
who voted for Ponta or Iohannis in the first round only by reinforcing their previous vote
choice; exposure to the debates did not significantly influence vote switching between the
two contenders. Despite the limitations of the cross-sectional research design, the findings
suggest a nuanced understanding of the behavioural effects of presidential debates and the
importance of analysing subsets of voters.
5.2 The impact of the perceived winner
The fourth hypothesis is tested by examining the impact of the perceived debate winner
on the likelihood of voting for the right-wing candidate (see Table 6). Among those having
a vote intention (N=657), 44% indicated Ponta as the winner of the first debate (compared
to 19% who preferred Iohannis); Ponta was also considered the winner of the second debate
(33.2%), but the margin over his right-wing opponent (21.3%) was significantly smaller14.
The first model in Table 6 excludes non-watchers because these respondents were not asked
who won each debate. Consequently, the total sample size is only 323. Despite the small
sample size, the effects of the perceived winner are statistically significant: perceiving Ponta
to be the winner of the debates decreases the likelihood of expressing a vote intention for
Iohannis whereas considering Iohannis the winner debates increases the probability of voting
for him. The results hold even when controlling for reported vote in the first round. Someone
who identified no winners has a 50% predicted probability of voting for Iohannis, while a
respondent who perceived Iohannis to be the winner of both debates has a 93% predicted
probability of voting for the right-wing candidate. In the case of those who considered Ponta
the winner in both media events, the predicted probability of voting for Iohannis is only 24%.
This provides strong support for the fourth hypothesis.
As a robustness check, I employed a more conservative operationalisation of the debate
winner perception variables. I coded the respondents who did not watch one or both debates
as persons who said that no candidate won the debates. Although the sample size increases
14 However, it should be kept in mind that the questions capture only the direct effects of the debates –those who did not watch the media events were not asked who won.
21
Table 6: The impact of the debate winner perception on the likelihood of voting for Iohannisin the second round
Winner perception modelWinner perception model
(conservative sample)
(Intercept) 5.62 (2.56)∗ 1.87 (0.92)∗
Woman −1.51 (1.08) −0.82 (0.43)·
Age −0.03 (0.03) −0.03 (0.01)∗
Education Secondary education −2.68 (1.68) −0.09 (0.59)Education Post-secondary education −1.50 (1.56) 0.63 (0.68)Leaners −1.33 (1.52) 0.07 (0.54)Vote R1 Iohannis 4.73 (1.47)∗∗ 3.59 (0.66)∗∗∗
Vote R1 Other Candidate 0.60 (1.01) −0.01 (0.47)Vote R1 Ponta −5.25 (2.10)∗ −4.01 (0.85)∗∗∗
Ponta Winner −2.14 (0.66)∗∗ −1.34 (0.31)∗∗∗
Iohannis Winner 3.91 (1.30)∗∗ 4.44 (0.98)∗∗∗
AIC 62.87 180.88BIC 104.43 228.64Log Likelihood −20.44 −79.44Deviance 40.87 158.88Num. obs. 323 568
∗∗∗p < 0.001, ∗∗p < 0.01, ∗p < 0.05, ·p < 0.1
to 568, this option is more conservative because it reduces the variance in my debate winner
variables. As can be observed in model 2, there are no major and substantive differences
compared to model 1 – the same variables are statistically significant and they maintain
their sign; moreover, due to the increased sample size, the level of statistical confidence for
the abovementioned variables increases.
At this point, we can conclude that the fourth hypothesis is confirmed. Indeed, voters
are more likely to say they will vote for the candidate who is perceived to have won the
presidential debates. The relationship is strong, holds under two different operationalisations
of the main independent variables and even when predispositions are taken into account, as
indicated by reported vote in the first round.
22
6 Conclusions and limits of the analysis
This paper represents, to my knowledge, the first investigation of the behavioural effects
of presidential debates in a Central and Eastern European country. In relation to the 2014
Romanian presidential elections, it set out to address four main questions: first, whether
voters who were exposed to the two presidential debates which took place between the two
rounds of the election were more likely to change their vote intentions; second, whether ex-
posure to the presidential debates had a significant impact on the vote intentions of thwarted
voters and first-round non-voters; third, whether exposure to debates increased the proba-
bility that a voter will form a second-round vote intention; and, fourth, whether voters were
more likely to say they would vote for the candidate whom they perceived to have won the
presidential debates.
The analyses provide only partial support for the first hypothesis. The debates had little
impact on those who had voted in the first round for the candidates qualified for the run-
off; for this subset of voters, the role of the debates seems to have been one of reinforcing
previous behaviour. However, the second hypothesis is confirmed: exposure to the debates
mattered for first-round thwarted voters and first-round non-voters. The same can be said
about the third hypothesis: for those who had a decision to make regarding their vote in the
second round, the debates were important. Specifically, someone who watched the debates
was more likely to form a second-round vote intention. In a close election, the votes of these
categories could prove decisive. As Chaffee (1978) argues, debates are most likely to have
an effect on vote choice when the contest appears to be a close one. The impact of the
debates on these voters suggests a new mechanism through which electoral persuasion and
mobilisation can take place. A two-ballot electoral system expands the realm of possibilities
for campaign effects. When looking at the effects of presidential debates in such systems,
researchers need to consider the whole spectrum of less committed voters. As this paper has
shown, there are three broad types of voters who cannot be ignored if the goal is to offer a
comprehensive understanding of the impact of debates in different democratic settings.
23
I found strong support for the fourth hypothesis. Perceiving a candidate to be the
winner of the debates increased the likelihood of voting for him. The finding holds even
when controlling for the reported vote in the first round and using a more conservative
operationalisation of the dependent variable.
The literature on the behavioural effects of debates is based mainly on research conducted
in the United States (presidential elections) and other Western democracies (federal elections
in Canada and Germany). Less interest has been shown in debates taking place in elections
using the two-ballot system. As the paper has shown, different dynamics operating in the
case of two-round elections point to the need to expand the circle of research. In particular,
the conclusions regarding the first-round thwarted voters and first-round non-voters have
both theoretical and practical consequences; they allow us to move beyond the question
of whether debates matter to the questions about for whom they matter and under what
conditions. For example, in the United States, the debates are more likely to have an
impact on those whose party allegiances are weak or non-existent (Chaffee, 1978) – leaning
Democrats, leaning Republicans, and independents. The existence of two-round elections
in countries characterised by party systems with more than two parties calls attention to
the role played by first-round thwarted voters, first-round non-voters, and, in general, by
those who have to make a decision about their second round vote. These types of electors,
which obviously do not exist in the context of the US presidential elections, are relevant
when assessing debate effects in Central and Eastern European countries. Thus, generalising
the conclusions of studies of the effects of debates drawn from the American, Canadian or
German experiences ignores important and potentially decisive swaths of voters who are a
reality in the electoral processes taking place in new democracies. In other words, existing
studies may have underestimated the overall impact of televised debates between political
leaders because their findings are context bound.
The paper is the first attempt in the region to address this topic. Powerful similarities
support the idea that the findings would apply to other Central and Eastern European
24
contexts (especially Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Croatia, and Bulgaria): shared
communist legacies and institutional trajectories after the end of the Cold War (related to EU
and NATO membership); the role of presidential elections as first-order elections; presidents
directly elected in two-ballot systems; the run-off organised two weeks after the first round
of the elections; presidential debates held only a few days before the second-round vote. The
potential for generalisability is clear, but its extent is ultimately an empirical question. Our
conclusions will have to be tested in different CEE countries and in different election years.
Moreover, better research designs (i.e. panel studies) are required to be able to confidently
address the issue of causality, something this paper is unable to do, as it is based on only one
post-debate survey. In particular, given the research design we are employing, we cannot
rule out the possibility that committed voters were more likely to watch the debates. Also,
we need to be sceptical of people’s ability to report reliably on their own motivations and so
the reinforcement thesis has to be treated with caution. More research will shed more light
on these promising findings.
25
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8 Appendix A
For the presentation of the vote intentions and for the empirical analysis, four national
representative surveys conducted by Sociopol, a Romanian polling institute, were considered.
The first survey was conducted between 5-7 November 2014; universe of research com-
posed of individuals aged 18 years and over and made up of 924 respondents; multistage
cluster sampling, with probabilistic selection of the respondents through the random route
technique; method of data collection – Computer-assisted telephone interviewing (CATI),
based on a standardized questionnaire; weighting by sex, age, ethnicity, region, city size;
margin of error of 3.22% at a 95% confidence level.
The second survey was conducted between 8-10 November 2014; universe of research com-
posed of individuals aged 18 years and over and made up of 1,019 respondents; multistage
cluster sampling, with probabilistic selection of the respondents through the random route
technique; method of data collection – CATI, based on a standardized questionnaire; weight-
ing by sex, age, ethnicity, region, city size; margin of error of 3.07% at a 95% confidence
level.
The third survey was conducted between 11-12 November 2014; universe of research
composed of individuals aged 18 years and over and made up of 875 respondents; multistage
cluster sampling, with probabilistic selection of the respondents through the random route
technique; method of data collection – CATI, based on a standardized questionnaire; weight-
ing by sex, age, ethnicity, region, city size; margin of error of 3.31% at a 95% confidence
level.
The fourth survey was conducted between 13-14 November 2014; universe of research
composed of individuals aged 18 years and over and made up of 833 respondents; multi-
stage cluster sampling, with probabilistic selection of the respondents through the random
route technique; method of data collection – CATI, based on a standardized questionnaire;
weighting by sex, age, ethnicity, region, city size; margin of error of 3.4% at a 95% confidence
level.
29
All four samples were validated based on the 2012 Statistical Yearbook provided by the
Romanian National Institute of Statistics and the 2011 Census.
30
9 Appendix B - Descriptive statistics
Table 7: Descriptive statistics for the dependent variable
Variable Levels n %Vote R2 (whole sample) Victor Ponta 299 35.9
Klaus Iohannis 274 32.9I would not go to vote 30 3.6DK NA 230 27.6All 833 100.0
Leaning voters Victor Ponta 41 15.8Klaus Iohannis 43 16.5DK NA 176 67.7All 260 100.0
Vote R2 (voters sample) Victor Ponta 340 51.8Klaus Iohannis 317 48.2All 657 100.0
31
Table 8: Descriptive statistics for the main independent variables
Variable Levels n %Debate1 Exposure No 185 28
Yes 469 71.4DK NA 3 0.6All 657 100.0
Debate2 Exposure No 250 38.1Yes 405 61.6DK NA 2 0.3All 657 100.0
Debate1 Winner Iohannis better 125 19.0Ponta better 289 44.0Both as good/weak 46 7.0Did not watch 188 28.6DK NA 9 1.4All 657 100.0
Debate2 Winner Iohannis better 140 21.3Ponta better 218 33.2Both as good/weak 37 5.6Did not watch 252 38.4DK NA 10 1.5All 657 100.0
32
Table 9: Descriptive statistics for control variables
Variable Levels n %Sex Male 309 47.0
Female 348 53.0All 657 100.0
Education Primary education 111 16.9Secondary education 358 54.5Post-secondary education 170 25.9DK NA 18 2.7All 657 100.0
Income Low income 196 29.8Medium income 74 11.3High income 61 9.3DK NA 326 49.6All 657 100.0
Vote R1 Victor Ponta 235 35.8Klaus Iohannis 180 27.4Other Candidate 83 12.6Did Not Vote 83 12.6DK NA 76 11.6All 657 100.0
Statistic N Mean St. Dev. Min Max
Age 657 50.422 19.023 18 99
33