The final presidential debate last night proved to be much more substantive than the first, with less instances where the candidates interrupted one another and more opportunities for each candidate to lay out their vision. Despite a stronger presence of decorum between the candidates, their messages remained more or less the same as they have throughout the course of each of their campaigns.
According to our Presidential Debate Analysis, both candidates and the moderator used strong risk and security language. A testament to the current global crisis as well as a tumultuous summer and a polarized country.
President Trump’s use of security language outweighed Biden’s, perhaps a bi-product of his law and order messaging and overall hopes that the electorate would rather maintain course with his administration for another four years. Unsurprisingly, Vice President Biden’s language was flipped with far more instances of risk language. His thesis for the election being that another four years of Trump is far too great a risk for the country to take.
Whether the candidates in this final debate have changed the outcome of this election is not for us to say, but it has shown that the spirit of the election has not changed from the first debate to the last.
