Mitch Perry
As both major political parties hold their last presidential debates this week (the GOP’s showdown is Tuesday in Las Vegas; the Democrats will engage this Saturday night in New Hampshire), a new national survey by the Pew Research Center shows that 74 percent of the American public say that they have given a lot of or some thought to the candidates, higher than this at comparable points in the past two presidential campaigns. In December 2007, the last time there was a competitive race with both parties, just 43 percent say they had given some or a lot of thought to the campaign.
The study also shows that the public has been highly entertained by this campaign season, no doubt due to the emergence of Donald Trump in the race. Two-thirds (67 percent) describe the presidential campaign as interesting – far more than did so before the first primary contests in the 2012 and 2008 campaigns (36 percent and 37 percent, respectively). About half (48 percent) say the campaign is informative, which is identical to the share that described the campaign as informative in January 2012.
The fact that there have been so many Republican presidential candidates (there are now 14) has also certainly created more interest among the mass media than the Democratic race, where there are only three candidates. Republicans are 14 percentage points more likely than Democrats and independents to describe the campaign as interesting (79 percent of Republicans vs. 65 percent of Democrats and independents).
However, only a third of the public (34 percent) say the campaign has “focused on important policy debates,” while 58 percent say it has not. That’s especially pronounced with Democrats and independents. By roughly a 2-to-1 margin, Democrats (63 percent to 29 percent) and independents (62 percent to 32 percent) say the campaign has not focused on important policy debates. Republicans are divided: 46 percent say the campaign has concentrated on important policy debates while 44 percent say it has not.
And we’re certainly a long way away from the “Hope and Change” campaign of 2008 of Barack Obama.
At this time eight years ago, just 18 percent of Democrats say the race was too negative. Now? 65 percent of Dems say the contest is too negative. Overall, 54 percent of the nation say this current campaign has been too negative.
About half (51 percent) say the debates have been fun to watch, while nearly as many (46 percent) say they have not been fun to watch. Republicans (56 percent-39 percent) are slightly more likely to view the debates as fun to watch than Democrats (50 percent-48 percent) and independents (48 percent-49 percent). However, about as many liberal Democrats (57 percent) as conservative Republicans (59 percent) say the debates have been fun to watch.
The analysis in this report is based on telephone interviews conducted Dec. 8-13, 2015 among a national sample of 1,500 adults, 18 years of age or older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia (525 respondents were interviewed on a landline telephone, and 975 were interviewed on a cell phone, including 582 who had no landline telephone).
