Now, the effect of general election debates has been overhyped by some. There’s little historical evidence that they’ve ever swung polls by more than a few percentage points. General election debates aren’t like primary debates — there are strong partisan loyalties, the vast majority of debate viewers have already made up their minds about who they’re voting for, and few are willing to change their minds because of what happened in one debate. [...]
Now, there’s one caveat: It’s probably not always the debates themselves that are moving polls here. Many other things happen between the start of debate season and the end. For instance, Barack Obama’s bump of 3 points or so during the 2008 debate season may have owed more to the unfolding economic crisis than his debate performances. [...]
Overall, it seems that debates likely haven’t changed the outcome of any recent election except, perhaps, for 2000, which was so close that any number of things could be said to have made the difference. Still, it’s certainly possible that a movement of a few points could tip a close election in the future. [...]
Furthermore, though the debates themselves will last for just 90 minutes, the spin war in the media over who won will last for days. And some political scientists have found that watching media coverage of the debate can do a great deal to shape perceptions about what actually happened.
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