WESTFIELD—After the first presidential debate between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton Monday night, Westfield State University political sciences professor Dr. David Smailes was trying to find the best way to sum up what he saw.
In the end, instead of his own words Smailes humbly used a response one of his students gave when they were asked what they thought the headline should be.
“The debate happened,” one of the students said.
Smailes couldn’t agree more.
Professor David Smailes of Westfield State University
Smailes, who has been a political science professor since 1990 and started at Westfield State in 2006, believes that this first debate—which was the most-watched debate in the event’s history, according to early Neilsen ratings—did little to make an impact on voters, especially undecided ones.
He said that there were many factors for this, including performance from both candidates and the social media popularity surrounding the election to this point.
“Neither of them had a moment that would define them to the public that doesn’t know them—and that was pretty striking,” Smailes said, referring to undecided voters. “I think that was a missed opportunity for them to make an impression on people.
“I would be very surprised if the poll numbers have moved a lot,” he said. “And I’d be very surprised if undecideds were moved one way or another in this debate.”
This could be troublesome for both candidates because these undecided voters could determine the election. According to Huffington Post’s Pollster, which averages out the election numbers from several national polls, going into the debate Clinton held a 42 percent-40.9 percent lead on Trump, while 6.5 percent of voters were undecided. This 6.5 percent could decide who enters the White House.
Part of the lack of movement, Smailes said, is because the performances of both didn’t do anything that would overcome the negativity each candidate has.
“Their negatives are so high that it would be hard to convince people to switch and that is difficult for both of them,” he said. “Neither one of them walked away with it and neither had an important defining moment.”
Smailes said that although Clinton seemed to be in control, she also seemed too prepared and artificial.
“The folksiness like Reagan in 1980, that’s what Clinton missed,” he said.
Smailes said that this lack of realness in Clinton is what people struggle with. Additionally, Clinton has had scandals appear during her run, including an email scandal and questions about the Clinton Foundation.
Still, Smailes thought that Trump missed chances to capitalize on these issues. He said that Trump was “off his game” during the debates—whether because of lack of preparation or lack of experience debating at this level—which led to Clinton controlling the debate.
“I think if Trump was on his game then he could have refocused that on Clinton,” he said. “There were opportunities like that where he could have turned the conversation another way but didn’t.”
Smailes said that instead, Trump was too busy defending his own record rather than attacking Clinton’s.
Still, even if the performances are strong, it may not have affected voters. And this is because of the role that social media has played to this point.
Bernie Sanders’ unlikely run was fueled by social media.
Pew Research and Analysis released a study in January that found that social media was considered the second most helpful source for information for all adults in the upcoming election, only behind cable news.
Additionally, when 18-to-29-year-olds were polled, they found social media the most helpful, and almost three times more helpful than cable news.
In short, social media is having a larger impact than it ever has.
This has come at a cost, though. As people learn more about the election and the candidates, Smailes sees people also becoming more devout to their opinions.
“I think people are much more entrenched, they have much stronger feelings about these candidates because social media,” he said. “This can isolate people—you are only seeing it on Facebook and only are friends with people who are agreeing with you, or only on Twitter with follows you agree with.
“It’s easier for voters to go into echo chambers and not hear much else.”
This echo chamber could continue to keep undecideds in the middle and committed voters on either side, making the race unpredictable.
However, Smailes believes that the debates coming up can still have an impact and will help to sway the undecided voters. He cites 2012 as an example, when President Barack Obama ran against Mitt Romney, and Obama’s poll lead dropped from 3.1 percent to 1.4 percent. Although the polls never bounced back up for Obama, Smailes believes that it was his performances in the second and third debates that kept him afloat and helped him eventually become president.
NOTE: Infographic made with information from Pew Research and Analysis and Google Sheets. For more information, put cursor over parts of the graphic.
