she pivoted more than uh a point guard in the NBA does you know she she was able to change direction so much uh dur the whole campaign and and and I think it at one point it kind of when you watch that over and over you want to say why don't you answer the question so it could have hurt her a little bit but that was that was the strategy and and she stuck with it what do you know about politics what should you know forget views beliefs and opinions politics is really a science and that's where we come in welcome to inside political science I'm Kirby gell I'm Todd Kent and we're your guides to what's actually happening in politics we're using our years of experience to navigate political data media money behavior and more to educate and inform you welcome to episode 12 we're now less than two months until election day Todd in any other in any other country that seems like a long election period but in the United States uh that seems like we're right on top of uh right on top of the election uh I'm Kirby gell professor of political science in the bush school I'm Todd Kent uh instructional professor at the department of political science and and we're getting out of the debates and and we thought maybe we should start off by reminding people what we thought going into the debate what were you looking for going into the debate well I felt like that really this debate we Donald Trump has been around a long time and and he was not going to be a surprise to people but so I thought this was a very important debate for KLA Harris and I was looking for two things first of all um will she show a command of the issues because that was kind of been the knock on her recently that she doesn't do interviews and the second thing is can she BR can he close the gap with Donald Trump on the economy because the economy remains for republicans and Democrats the number one issue in America and uh at least right now the polls say that Donald Trump people would trust him more with the economy than her can't she close that Gap yeah and and and I agree with those points and was looking for many of the same things the uh the one sort of additional thing is I thought this even though people know who Trump is this offered Trump an opportunity to Define kamla Harris in the context of a one-on-one setting and to go after her directly and I wondered would she be rattled would she would she St the the spotlight is different when you're in a presidential debate uh and it's easy to get a little knocked off or a little bit derailed from what you're trying to accomplish and what your focus is and and would Trump be able to uh to knock her off a little bit and then the other thing is uh the expectations going into the debate I thought worked against comma Harris a little bit I'm not in hindsight I'm not as sure about that but going into it I thought she was seen as the prosecutor as the person who would be able to bring the case at Trump uh and that that worked a little to her disadvantage as long as As Trump stayed focused uh and was able to focus on the issues and focus on the the the Biden Harris record and try to tie her to that record so uh those were our expectations going in what do you think happened well I think broadly she was able to execute her strategy much better than he was in fact I don't know what his strategy was I mean it was it was he his his strategy was to respond to everything that she said which is which was bad strategy no but really she she did she stayed she started stayed on message she continually just attacked him and kind of like you said prosecuted him and she did that without answering any questions yeah so she she probably got away with uh kind of not having to deal with the policy issues and was able to put him on the defensive which he was the whole evening uh yeah I I still can't figure out what the Strate what his strategy was I I think he had one but I you know go back I like boxing analogies often when we talk about the uh uh campaigns and political events because this is the Mike Tyson every everybody's got a fight plan until they get hit and and I I think that's what happened to Trump in this in this particular uh debate setting they actually had a plan I think his advisers would say uh he got hit and once he got hit he got completely off plan and he couldn't he couldn't be back in until maybe at the very end of the debate uh but I don't know whether you had the same reaction I did when the debate date first opened and they asked the question to KLA Harris about the economy and whether the economy was better than it was when when Trump was President I thought she stumbled badly right out of the gate and and my immediate thought was uhoh she's not an she's dodging the question she's not answering the question directly and she's not providing an economic plan she's not dealing with the single most important issue in the election this is not good no I agree with you and and I think that was the time when Trump should have pounced where he he should have said uh you know we have a we have an Administration that we are a $34 trillion in debt we uh our interest payments on the debt are now exceeding defense spending uh inflation's High people can't buy hom he should have just jumped all over that and and he and that and I think that was kind of the what I kept seeing is all these opportunities uh use the baseball analogy swinging a mess yeah you know that just uh she kind of laid it out there and really uh right off the bat with the with with the economy talk yeah I I I was really concerned going in after that first question in terms of whether she was going to be able to handle the spotlight I agree Trump had a better opportunity there to to really focus on his plan he didn't he didn't capitalize on it and then they moved to abortion with an abortion question uh directed at Donald Trump uh and then it's his time to squirm right where where you know he's trying to uh I think you know he's he's been trying to take a more middle of the road position and trying to uh take the edge off U and I and he kept kind of doing that and I think he didn't do it well but U that that was it looked to me like that's what he was trying to do is to kind of move so to take it off the table yeah and it's it's it's very tricky for him because I don't think it's an it's an issue that's been a driving issue for him but it's been important for him in terms of getting elected in 2016 because I know a number of Republicans who who have told me that you know I was a little uncertain about Donald Trump but at the end of the day it's about the court it's about abortion it's about roie Wade and I'll hold my nose and I'll vote for him and he delivered for them uh and so in that way he has a major victory for his base uh but in today's politics uh abortion since that that decision abortion has been an incredibly mobilizing Force for the Democratic party it's driven voters to turn out it's driven them to vote directly on initiatives uh and it's a tricky position now for Trump to be in uh sort of the let's let the states decide is not the pro-life position that he had in 2016 uh it's it's it's It's Tricky on on on his side on that particular the politics of it are super tricky there well and this is something that I think we can get into more today this idea of um who's who's watching and who's undecided and like an issue like abortion is it going to move num for either candidate because uh you you would expect those that are kind of paying attention to politics over the last couple years if they if if abortion is a major issue to them uh they they already know which candidate that they support and so my my question is even though it's out there and there seem to be some fumbling is it really going to to change uh the makeup of the of the voter pool yeah and and also what he was trying to do and I and I hope people picked up on this because as a political strategy this makes a lot of sense and and Republicans have been trying to trying to employ this strategy on the abortion issue is to say we're not the extremist they're the extremist uh but he may have gone a little too far there I don't I don't you know we can no that that's that's more of a subjective type of opinion question but it's still what we want people to understand is that what part of his answer is to say the Democrats are the extremist on this issue they want abortion on demand we're the more reasonable people we're saying let the voters decide yeah and and uh any effort along that line I think he fell short of what what you know trying to to say look uh they want abortion you know all the way past nine months you know what I mean and so it it it became that be he came to arguing the same point over and over again and I think that uh instead of saying look we're not going to win this battle tonight so let's move on yeah and then I thought the the the big change in the debate the where kamla Harris won the debate uh and I don't we can talk about what it means to win the debate and whether this is a clear win or knock whether it was a knockout or a decision on points or whatever sort of analogy we want to use there uh but I think the the key was on the immigration question where she's weak and she threw in the little jab about go to his rallies and watch people are getting bored and they're leaving early and Trump has the chance on this to really hit on the border and to really hit on immigration and to hit on a place where Democrats are weak but she baits him and he takes the bait on crowd size and from that moment on he's he's angry Trump right no I agree again swinging a mess you know there was there was a softball out there to take uh we know that uh uh immigration is the number number two issue for Republicans but it's also uh it's not it's not a huge issue for Democrats but it it I think it might be one of the issues that that maybe an undecided voter might be thinking about you know they they watch the news they they just there there's always something going on and so I think that that was an opportunity again she was able to miss or to change directions she pivoted more than uh a point guard in the NBA does you know she she was able to change direction so much uh during the whole campaign and and and I think it at one point it kind of when you watch that over and over you want to say why don't you answer the question question so it could have hurt her a little bit but that was that was a strategy and then and she stuck with it yeah and she was able to then uh throw in these little things and answers that weren't always related to the question that was that that was being asked and he constantly took the bait uh so there was the the the jab at him for inheriting $400 million and then declaring bankruptcy six times and talking and and it that wasn't the point of the question and and he had an opportunity to hit her on the economy and the lack of a of an economic plan and yet he took the bait right you know it's it's uh I think the mistake that if I and that I think he made you don't have to answer everything that's said yeah and you know and and you just move on and get make sure that at the end of the day you your your key points that you want to make are made clearly yeah even if you have to make them over and over again yes that that when somebody goes by and say gosh he talked about the economy all night that would have been a good thing but and but I think this this need to respond is is uh is probably the the thing that hurt him the most yeah and he he was definitely responding but he was also responding to the piece the smaller piece of a of the bigger question because going into it you do think you know if you were advising his his campaign I I'm I would have started saying all right don't even call it the Biden Harris Administration don't call call it the Biden Administration don't bring up Biden if you bring up Biden always say the Harris Biden Administration always put her first and then connect him to Biden if you want to do that but but make sure you're saddling her with what's happened over the first the the last four years and then also make sure that you are uh really going after uh her for not doing more cuz she wants you to look to the Future uh she doesn't want you to look to the Past she doesn't want you to ask answer the Retro perspective voting question in political science this is the famous Ronald Reagan question are you better off now than you were four years ago she wants to avoid that uh and you've got to force her to to be accountable for the for the administration she was a part of and he just got distracted yeah he he did and and you know and this is something I think after our break we we should discuss is this idea of uh you know the the viewer who's watching this hour and a half debate how many are actually watching the whole time or they just get a little glimpse of of and they take their opinions based on a short time and really how many of there can actually be moved yeah yeah and and we do know that um uh that in terms of the viewing uh audience here this was this was a more watch debate than the first debate uh I think the numbers were 67 million uh viewers and uh about I think it was about a third more I forget I had the numbers written down I should have I should have had them clear uh and uh so more people were watching because people were interested I think in two things the question of who is kamla Harris Let's Define her let's figure out who she is let's let's figure out whether she can be a president uh and then the other part of the question is uh is Donald Trump going to be the focus Donald Trump we saw in the first debate or is he going to be the Donald Trump at his rally sometimes where he's he's going off on tangents and and side points no you're EX you're exactly right in fact I I looked up the numbers this debate had the same amount of viewers as the George HW Bush Ross pero um uh Bill Clinton debates of 1992 so it's so we go back to them and we find a debate with about the same number of V of uh viewers and and that's pretty remarkable because that that the world's changed a lot over that period of time and one of the things that we know that how the world has changed is people have more viewing options and so it's harder to attract those types of large audiences so the fact that they had the large audiences uh comparable to that period uh is is remarkable for lots of reasons it really it does show us some interest in what's going on because you're right today's viewer you can watch Recaps later that night if you want you I know students that I work with they watch they'll watch Clips over the next day they don't have to see it in person anymore but we had with 67 million that that's a that's actually a very large audience yeah and so that that's a great point I think because one of the one of the things that we've talked about and we've we've thought about is most people aren't watching all the way through uh and and so even if the numbers are very good most people are forming their opinion often on the interpretations that come out after the debate uh and the clips that become viral uh I haven't had a chance to really get a sense of which Clips are are viral yet I know the the Springfield Ohio pet eating is has been moving some on Twitter and getting our ex and getting lot to play what do you think there was a single sort of viral moment the sort of I Know Jack Kennedy uh type of moment in this debate or you know that's a good that's a good question I think um I was I was actually looking for some viral ones last night as I was as I was prepping a little bit uh you know when um for trump it was the when he said I'm talking yes kind kind of don't interrupt me type thing uh for her you know because she followed the same pattern one thing I I remember when they were talking about uh crime statistics and Trump was was kind of kept trying to make his point and got bigger and bigger and bigger you know that crime around the world is down because of all the immigrants you know and I think that was a weak point but and then they uh they asked Kama what do you think about the crime statistics and she said immediately attacked Donald Trump because he had been prosecuted 34 times you know or been indicted 34 times so I I I think it was uh um those are the the viral moments that that I remember about her that just not answering the question but going back after Trump because that was a strategy yeah and and clearly her strategy was if there is a viral moment to come out of this C out of this particular debate I want it to be him I it wasn't going to be the the the put down from her campaign at him as much as it was going to be let's see if he can let's see if I can get him flustered and see if I can get him to make a mistake what what's interesting is if you if you look at Social since social media is so big today it's it's what it's what the memes are and the and I think Donald Trump lost the meme more because it's all about animals and so yeah cats and birds so I I I think I think that that's where people are are they're making jokes about it and I think that tends to hurt you yeah and it's hard to to recover from from those particular uh type of Moments One of thing that I noticed in some of the numers about who was watching uh is that it was younger people who were the new audience right so so people you're no offense but people our age are going to watch the debate no matter what uh we're going to watch uh no matter who the candidates are uh because we're political junkies uh but but this debate did attract some younger people into it uh and it's and it's not clear what they came away with in terms of uh in terms of their impressions of the candidates yeah and kind of what yeah it' be interesting to ask them what did you expect to see when you when you watch this I did I did notice in in in uh my classes of political science Majors that a a a large majority watched the debate uh one thing that came out in one of the polling organizations they asked people who if they' watched the debate and they said yes and they asked how long did you watch it 44% of at least in this this one poll said we watched it all the way through which meant the other 56% were dabbling yeah watch 30 minutes 20 minutes or whatever just to kind of see what was going on but you know the debates get a little tiring if you watch them yes it's not it's not it's not they're not that exciting usually and uh there's a lot of uh kind of posturing and that type of thing so it's maybe it's surprising that 44% stayed the whole time yeah and and and so from a political science standpoint often times when we're trying to figure out the effect of watching something we need to know whether people are exposed but we also need to know how much attention they're paying to it and and and in their home unless we're bringing them into a lab and we're saying pay close attention to this uh where we can often see strong effects in their home they're cooking dinner or they're going to the fridge and getting a drink or they're wandering around or somebody's calling them on the phone during the debate and and so they aren't paying the the type of attention that that you know that maybe we are to this this particular debate in fact I was watching it with my wife and and she said we need to go back to the the the Frank nuts type uh focus group out there where you have a a dial I love the dials and so you can watch it in real time the the numbers going up or down when and you know what are what are moderates thinking about this or Independents and Republicans Democrats that that would have been really interesting to to see that and maybe somebody has done that we just haven't seen the data yet yeah yeah the the so the the minute-by-minute exposure is is is a great thing to see in a in in a presidential debate so I I think maybe uh this would be a good place to take a break uh and uh come back and talk about who won and what it means to win a debate so when we come back we'll talk about who won this debate sounds good I'm Chris Boyd host of think each day we strive to expand your worldview by talking about discoveries and science and health about new ways of considering the past and present and about the issues that divide us and occasionally bring us together plus we always save space to hear the deeply personal stories that remind us that each of our experiences is unique I hope you'll join us next time as we take a moment to think weekdays at 1 on kamu FM craving Adventure PBS passport is your ticket to the hottest destinations in drama check into luxurious hotels hit exclusive beaches but fair warning travel plans can sometimes get complicated if you've got the itch for drama travel the world and stream now with PBS passport on the PBS all right welcome back uh so Todd I was talking to my class before the debate on Tuesday and I made them do a handwritten little thing I said predict who's going to win the debate and one of them very smartly we have very good students as you know said what do you mean win and you tell me what it means to win a debate uh so maybe before we jump into who won what does it mean to win a debate in today's Poli environment you know to me as a former political consultant to to win is really at the end of that you if you know what you uh where you stood before the debate and after the debate did were you able to move the numbers in your direction that that favors you yeah because you know a lot of times I think in in our our modern world in instant news we we we we judge the winner based on who who we felt like did better yeah you know we say oh well she had kind of she didn't get flustered he got flustered therefore she was the winner but the at the end of the day the winner is the one where it made a difference in their campaign because that's really the ultimate goal there is to to improve your standing among voters and and one of the things that we know in terms of the the the literature on this is It's hard to show real strong consistent debate effects across debates when we try to measure things because uh a lot of the people who are watching uh to our to our earlier points uh are watching because they're partisan cheerleading right you're watching it because you are a trump fan and you want to see him land some blows or you're watching it because you're a KLA Harris fan and you want to see her stand up and so at the end of the day it doesn't do much to move because most of the people who are watching are are pretty partisan to begin with and even if they're not really strong partisans they have partisan leanings yeah and they've made a a lot of them have made up their minds I mean Donald Trump is not a new figure on the on the Block so they they know whether or not they like him and his supporters are there to like you said be a cheerleader for him so it's I think you're right in that it's hard to move those numbers because the there's just a few undecided and most of the time when you get this far into a campaign even though K Harris is new to the to the campaign it's still been going on for a long time yeah is that uh a lot of the your undecideds we would say that they're low information that they're it's not that they're not smart it's that that they just don't they would rather do other things than focus on the politics and so um and they're the least likely to tune in for an hour and a half debate because they just it's just not that important to them yeah so but with all those qualifications aside you know so far I think the headline news is people are saying that kamla Harris dominated or this was bad for Donald Trump uh is that right in your view uh do you think she won I think well if you were going to you're going to say okay do we have a debate winner uh I would say that probably the her the perception of her performance versus his she's probably in my opinion probably was the winner but the the issue it goes back to does it really matter yeah does does uh you know um were there undecided to now say I'm going to vote for kamla or were you know or was she able to to break his his his hold on uh kind of being judges better with the economy better with uh immigration something like that was she be able to to break into that and so I I don't think so I think that you know when it comes to policy issues because there were they didn't talk a lot about policy issues that nobody actually was able to to to command a big perform uh you know a big victory there I think on the just the the the visual of it certainly I think she probably would be considered the winner yeah I I I was you know you watched the debate and I I thought Trump's performance was better than Biden's in the first debate but really bad by any sort of historical standard because of the things we were talking about in the first half of the show he was getting distracted he was focusing on minor points he was throwing out uh information that that was uh in many cases questionable but also just not focused right and not not making the case we if we say what he wants to do is tie her to the to the Biden past four years not let her be about a future not be about a change he failed on almost all those counts uh but at the end of the day we live in a polarized Society uh and uh Trump especially in that in in this environment uh has become a candidate whose uh floor is very high he's not going to fall below 45% I can't imagine him falling below 45% it's hard to imagine him getting above 50 and and so it's hard to see that this move the needle on on those Dynamics the one place where I think kamla Harris really came away and should feel very good uh is well a a couple of pieces of this and it is image she looked more presidential I thought unlike Biden in the first debate she seemed to be aware of the camera when it was not on when she was not speaking and so she was paying attention to facial expressions and reactions and throughout the debate I thought you know if if your question is can kamla Harris come in and stand up to Donald Trump for 90 minutes and show that she's a strong forceful candidate and can look presidential I think she did that I think she cleared that bar there's no doubt about it if you if you looked at they they did a lot of split screens and I think they probably did that on purpose but she she looked at him she smiled she wasn't rattled where uh when she attacked him you could see that he he was getting angry and he was going to respond to what she said which is exactly what she wanted him to do um I think if there's if there a knock it was the fact that you you you know we didn't really come out knowing a lot more about what she would do to solve some of the big problems that we face in this country um you know whether they be inflation or the economy uh interest rates you know the the Border crime you know um and it may be I I was looking at some uh some pre-work that Newsweek magazine did they asked people what what do you want to hear what issues do you want to hear about and and a lot of those issues are not that important to the Democrats they wanted to hear about abortion they wanted to hear about uh what's interesting to me that one came out was Social Security MH but but you know we U that they really wanted to hear about but we didn't hear we didn't hear that much about that so you know I I think I think there was if the bar that she got over was look I I I looked like I could be presidential I I didn't laugh about things I you know there were some things that knocked on her in the past when she's been in front of the camera I think she certainly exceeded that probably the the downside was was kind of a lack of uh kind of policy wonkiness you know in me words she could really say that girl she knows what she's talking about yeah I I think she cleared the image bar if if she really wanted to instill confidence in people that this is someone with a plan for the future and and knows exactly what she wants to do I I don't think she did that and i' I've seen some polls I mean some polls some some time estimates of how much each candidate spoke uh and and I'll hit on part of that again in a second but the the thing that's important now she spent more of her time attacking Trump than Trump spent his time attacking her and I think that tells you part about her strategy let's let get let's let put him in the spotlight let's let try to force him to make a mistake and lose the debate rather than me really win the debate by uh by coming out as as someone with a clear plan for the future right you know she was in a difficult position because um you know Donald Trump what he did not do was to to uh kind of make her part of the of the this Biden Harris uh you know uh Administration and and and the and tie the problems of today to that he was he really wasn't able to do that and she continued to say you know we're not going to be a campaign that looks back but we're going to look forward so it's almost like you need you guys need to forget about everything that that's happened we're not and we're not going to talk about it we're going to move forward now as the debate was going on there was there was already on I'm one of those people with multiple screens while I'm watching a debate I'm you know and so I'm trying to see how uh uh Twitter X is responding to to the debate at the same time that it's going on and and even before the debate was over uh on the Republican side you be to see people criticize the moderators in the first debate just if we remember back Biden versus Trump lots of Democrats were crti criticizing the moderators they were saying Trump they let Trump get away with too much they didn't step in when he was saying something that was false these moderators decided they would step in and they did uh and so they've been accused of overstepping uh which I think highlights well I guess the first point is just that uh oftentimes the moderators are in a no- win position right because if they step in they're criticized if they don't step in they're criticized but did you get do you think they helped uh kamla Harris or did well the criticism is that they didn't fact check her you know they didn't go back at her when when she would say something my feeling is if we're if we're going to place blame you you you really can't blame the moderators for a poor result and you know and you had the opportunity to speak speak a lot for an hour and a half you know you at least get half of that time and so I think that uh former president Trump had opportunities he was talking about the wrong things he he didn't use the time to make his points even no matter irrespective of the moderators so you know we're I as long as I've been following presidential uh debates you always the moderators are always by us I mean that's what they that's whatever they've been saying so I think you just you just go in and you the good debater makes sure that at the end of the day their messages across and it's very clear it was said over and over so there's no mistaking uh what what's going on yeah and and and he did I mean in terms of first getting rattled um I think on the crowd siiz debate I do think the moderators stepping in did bother him a little bit because you know they stepped in initially on the abortion issue when he was trying to say that um there is there are abortions after the birth uh to correct that and then they stepped in on the crime issue and then they uh and then they stepped in on uh what was the third one I'm having a I'm having a Rick Perry debate moment here but they stepped in they stepped in uh on multiple uh issues in order to correct and it and it did seem to Rattle him a little bit and and added to what was already a frustrating EXP experience I think for him yeah and I I think that Lind when that happens he tends to go into um it's unfair kind of this idea that's unfair I've been treating unfairly look how they treated me unfairly but the past I I uh you know in my documents case I'm prosecuted and and Joe Biden nothing happens to him you know that this kind of when when he gets into that I think that's when uh he he loses his appeal Beyond his base and that kind of victim mentality yeah and in and in terms of the accounting of the time uh the one thing that uh that I thought was interesting Trump spoke for roughly and I may have the numbers not exactly right I think about 32 minutes Harris spoke for about 23 24 uh and so to your point that he did have some extra opportunities because of the way the debate played out in terms of in terms of the amount of time that he got uh and then the question is did he use the time well and to his Advantage right you know I I think um we know from from the the research done on political advertising you really need a clear message over and over and over again people we just don't hear you know most people that that are watching the debate are looking at Twitter they're they're calling their mom they're doing other stuff too and so you have to almost say it over and over again and I think that's where the the failure was and even and I've kind of been harsh with Donald Trump's performance but I think that we we kind of get away from the fact that neither candidate really was very good yeah in the end of the day if you say that uh um you know she probably looked better uh her demeanor was was was better you know she looked presidential but as far as a as as an actual debate I'm not I'm not sure that in the after about a week now that we're going to go that we're going to remember anything significant yeah so CNN did a poll um and and what was neat about the uh polls they talked to people before the debate and then they talked to them after so they knew that they were actually watching so this is already a little misleading because we're only looking at debate Watchers and we're missing out the people who didn't pay any attention in the first place so we should take that going into debate they asked them who they thought would win the debate uh 50% said Trump 50% said Harris a dead even split at the end of the debate uh 63% said uh Trump I mean said Harris sorry and 30% said Trump so clearly among this group of people who were watching uh for CNN they thought that KLA Harris won the debate but uh the the and well and one other thing her favorability did shift and so she became more favorable uh before the debate about a negative 11 on favorable un you know less favorable than favorable and after the debate one plus plus one point uh Trump's favorability didn't move at all and then the other part of it though is uh only about 4% said the debate changed their mind so even if you thought if you were a trump supporter and you watched the debate and you said yeah KLA Harris actually won the debate uh then uh you still weren't likely to move much in terms of your overall support so the numbers are fairly small in terms of the number of people who watched and said yeah I think I'm going to vote for the other person yeah and and I would expect because of the fact it was some people I heard somebody say it's a wash you know what I mean at the end that over the over the next couple weeks three weeks we're going to see this dis this uh the influence of that debate is going to dissipate quickly and and something new is going to happen that will steal the spotlight and I think that's with social media the way it is used to be we had to go back to CBS NBC to kind of find out what's going on now you just you just turn on your phone and so I I I think that we're going to see in the end in the end this was not a consequential debate that's yeah and so after the debate though maybe as consequential as the debate Taylor Swift came out with an endorsement yeah that's a we've been studying endorsements for some time in political science what do you think about the endorsement well I mean you would certainly never turn down her endorsement you know she's got millions and millions of of of uh you know fans that follow her and have been following her the last years as her big tour and relationship with the Kansas City chief you know so uh she certainly got that my my you know the the the strongest um kind of constituent of the of the Democrats is this are single females and my guess is that that group was already supporting Comm Harris but even pre pre- endorsement the question is how many new people did she bring to the table uh or does it even matter and so I I think that the the actual impact of that's probably going to be less than we think just because most of the people that that would be her supporters probably have already made up their mind yeah and and when we've studied endorsements in political science I think at best you could describe the findings of an Endor the findings of whether endorsements matter uh to be mixed it depends on who's doing the endorsement it depends on who's getting the endorsement uh but one of one of the I mean one of the big things I think that is that is important is just saying you support someone doesn't it's it's never bad it's never I mean I guess we could think of some cases where you don't want someone's endorsement but but for the most part you'd rather have an endorsement than not uh but the CH the question is is someone going to put some Capital behind the endorsement is someone going to campaign with the candidate or they're going to use the the the resources that they have to encourage people to go out to vote so uh Taylor Swift saying she supports uh kamla Harris is certainly a good thing for the Harris campaign uh but it's not clear how good of a thing it is does it does it bring someone to to your point I don't think it brings someone who's currently supporting Donald Trump and says oh Taylor Swift supported kamla Harris let me change my mind but what it can do is it can excite some people and get them out to the polls if Taylor Swift is actively campaigning and engaging for her and we don't know whether that's going to happen yet yeah i' I've always thought that her probably her best contribution to a campaign would be uh voter registration yes you know because I know that like our students here they they intend to vote but sometimes they don't get registered and in Texas you have to register 30 days in advance and so they they miss out so I think her efforts in voter registration to young people which we know is the is the group that votes in the least percentag is you know when we look at 18 to 29 year olds is the lowest number of Voters or percentage of Voters within that group that maybe she could help in that area but uh I'm not sure that uh like you said that you know a 55y old Trump voter is going to say I'm going to vote I'm want to I'm G to relook at it because Taylor Swift decided to endorse Kam haris yeah and we've seen some other endorsements during this campaign cycle it's not always clear how well they they play out RFK uh Jr of course endorsing Trump and joining his campaign sort of uh though his comments after the debate were interesting uh and uh and then there's the Waltz family members who are supporting Trump so there is this effort often to get people to uh endorse a campaign and especially if it's someone who looks like they should support uh the the other side it it it seems to be something that campaigns do that they try to use for PR purposes but it's just not clear that it matters unless you can either bring new voters to the table or mobilize voters who are maybe not likely to vote right no I agree with you and I think that's why we you certainly you um especially in local politics you see like in the old newspapers where they would get get endorsements from all elected officials and leaders in the community and what they were trying to do is say it's it's okay to vote for me because look at all these other people are voting for me and I think that's thing but now we're seeing this on the big scale if if Elon Musk is supporting Donald Trump does that what do it you know does that matter or you know and so I think the these are the important you know personally I I think because the the Walt family kind of came out for Trump and had some issues with with the their relative my guess is that it didn't it didn't change there's not a nothing happened you know yeah and what I what I what I I think the musk uh endorsement of trump is probably a better U parallel to the Taylor Swift even though he's sort of a different political figure or maybe a more polarizing political figure uh but uh the real question is what are they going to do as we go forward in to the and and as we get closer and closer to election day and so what I'm going to be watching going forward from that endorsement is is Taylor Swift actually putting time money effort energy into helping to support kamla Harris because if she does I do think she could uh make a difference on the mobilization front not the new voter front right and going forward I think we're going to have to look at U so what happens now uh is there going to be a continued call for like uh vice president Harris we need to understand understand your thoughts on these policy issues and and and then going forward what's Trump going to do what's his uh how's he going to act and how's he going to behave going forward is he going to look more presidential or is he going to uh continue to talk about issues that we read about on Twitter every day so I and I think that's a big issue for him yeah yeah the the the focus campaign but we are now uh into the home stretch and uh so we are looking forward to to seeing the candidates try to bring all the pieces together message mobilization uh advertising all of this has to come together over the last uh last last couple of weeks of the campaign uh in in a way that can push them and propel them to Victory so um you know this idea that uh kind of going back to the Reagan are you better off now than you were four years ago uh do you think that that in this last bit of the campaign is that a winning message for Donald Trump if if I were him I would be saying nothing else uh and you know I I think that's that's that's that's that's his that's the reason I think he was ahead on Biden is because he was able to say that this was the Biden Administration and that he could he could return to a better time uh and that's his that's his path to Victory but I'm not sure uh I'm not sure that he can make the cas as effectively against Harris as he as he was making it against uh against Joe Biden or uh whether he can can stay focused on that particular part of the message and not get distracted as we said he's got to he's got to stay focused on message if he's going to if he's going to win this campaign and Harris has to on the flip side I think has to make this constantly about change she is the future and if she can get people thinking about and focused on the future and not about the past I think she wins the election yeah it's interesting how they've been able to change the Biden was old and Trump was young and vigorous and now Trump Trump looks old and she's young and vigorous so it's a it's a a lot of things happen and it's interesting to me how in in the campaign cycle it seems It's sped up maybe it's because of this unique cycle but also I think we have so much more access to information and quick information that things can change faster than they used to it used to be that change was hard on a campaign it took a long time to disseminate information yeah and one of the one of the amazing things about this particular campaign cycle is it felt like the race was set then it was reset then it's been reset again uh and in two months there's no telling what's going to happen but I can tell you we're going to be here to talk about it so that's it for episode 12 of inside political science thank you for joining us and we'll see you next time inside political science is a production from kamu aulan public television and radio for more information visit TX . a/ insid political science have a question for our experts email them at inside polyi at tamu.edu also subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast platform so you never miss a new episode [Music]