Author: Caitlin Peartree

Caitlin joined the Winston Group in November 2015. Originally from upstate New York, Caitlin graduated from the University of Notre Dame in May 2015. She received a Bachelor of Arts in the Program of Liberal Studies, a great books program, and in French. Her coursework focused on literature, philosophy, theology, history, fine arts, and science, and she is fluent in French. Prior to joining the Winston Group, Caitlin gained experience as an intern with the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP). Her interests include health and education policy.
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2024 Republican Presidential Primary First Debate

In past presidential elections, the Winston Group has analyzed the primary and general election debates to build a picture of how the topics covered interact with what voters have said — through surveys and exit polls — are their greatest concerns and the issues that are the most important for them in choosing for whom they will vote.

The following report continues our analysis for the Republican primary debates in anticipation of the general election next fall. This report covers the first Republican Primary Debate, hosted by Fox News on August 23, 2023. Topics covered include the distribution of issue topics in the debate questions, the number of questions asked of specific candidates, and candidate speaking times.

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2020 Presidential Debates

In past presidential elections, the Winston Group has analyzed the primary and general election debates to build a picture of how the topics covered interact with what voters have said — through surveys and exit polls — are their greatest concerns and the issues that are the most important for them in choosing for whom they will vote. 

Across all the 2020 debates/town halls, Covid was the dominant question topic, accounting for over a quarter (27%) of all questions asked. Covid is followed by social issues (17%) and electability (14%) as a second tier of question priorities, followed by the economy (8%), the judicial system (7%), climate (7%) and foreign policy (6%). A next lowest tier was comprised of presidential priorities (5%), health care (5%), and immigration (3%), with a few questions devoted to other candidates (1%) or education (1%). In 2016, electability (29%) and foreign policy (27%) were the clear question priorities, while during the 2020 Democratic primaries, the priority was social issues (19%). 

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2020 Democratic Presidential Primary Debates

In past presidential elections, the Winston Group has analyzed the primary and general election debates to build a picture of how the topics covered interact with what voters have said — through surveys and exit polls — are their greatest concerns and the issues that are the most important for them in choosing for whom they will vote.

The following report continues our analysis for the Democratic primary debates in anticipation of the general election this fall. In the previous debate, before the South Carolina primary and Super Tuesday, questions about foreign policy or national security were the most-represented, followed closely by questions about other candidates and their policies and/or prospects. Across all the debates so far, questions about social issues (a broad category including guns, abortion, and race relations, as well as general division and polarization in the country) have taken priority, with foreign policy and, somewhat more recently, candidate electability also emerging as priority topics in the debates thus far.

This report will continue our analysis, with information from the previous ten debates and the newest information from the CNN March 15 debate, featuring Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden only and moved to Washington, DC without an audience amid coronavirus concerns. 

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2016 Presidential Debates

Throughout the general election season, the Winston Group has been analyzing the presidential and vice presidential debates to quantify how the question topics interact with voters’ key concerns for election day. As noted in our previous report on the last presidential debate, jobs and the economy remains the number one issue for general election voters.

In the debates, questions about electability and foreign policy are well-represented among all the debate questions. In fact, these two topics tie as the most asked-about topics across all three main debates and the vice presidential debate. As for the questions posed to each candidate, the two tickets are roughly even when it comes to the number of questions received pertaining to the different topics. Trump-Pence, however, slightly outpaces Clinton-Kaine in both number of questions received and overall speaking time. They also continue to receive more questions about electability when compared with Clinton-Kaine.  

Here, we present our analysis of debate topics, number of questions addressed to candidates, and more for the third and final presidential debate. As we also stated in our last report, many voters report feeling dissatisfied with the current state of political discourse, a dissatisfaction that is markedly worse than it has been in recent years. As the election draws closer, understanding how well the debates address voters’ concerns is key.

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2016 Democratic and Republican Presidential Primary Debates

The Winston Group has been analyzing the Republican primary debates to build a picture of how the topics covered interact with what voters have said — through surveys and exit polls — are their greatest concerns and the issues that are most important to them in choosing for whom they will vote in 2016. 

Across the first two Republican primary debates, we continued to see a pattern we had first noticed while analyzing the 2012 primary debates — that while the economy is the top issue for Republican primary voters, it struggled as a question topic in debates. While the third debate, hosted by CNBC, was supposed to be completely focused on questions on the economy, the topic still fell far short as many other topics were introduced. Although questions about the economy comprised the greatest percentage of overall questions to date in the fourth Republican debate, hosted by Fox Business/WSJ, the terror attacks in Paris and San Bernardino dramatically shifted the tone of the debates and the priorities of the question topics. Questions about foreign policy and national security began to take center stage. Foreign policy and national security remained an incredibly important and much discussed topic moving into 2016. It was the most asked about topic in the January 14 debate hosted by Fox Business, a trend which continued in the ABC News Feb 6 and CBS News Feb 13 debates. In the CNN Feb 25 debate, immigration was the most asked about topic, but in the Fox News March 3 debate, foreign policy and national security returned as the most asked about question topic, followed by electability and immigration tied for second. In the CNN/Washington Times March 10 debate, foreign policy and national security tied with electability as the most popular question topics.    

Here we continue our analysis of debate topics, candidate speaking times, and more, including information from the twelfth Republican debate and ninth Democratic debate. How well did the debates address the concerns and questions of voters? 

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2012 Republican Presidential Primary Debates

The Winston Group analyzed the 2012 primary election debates, looking at the following questions:  How well did the questions reflect the issues that voters wanted to hear about? Which networks and which anchors asked the most questions? And which candidates received the most questions?

Over the course of twenty debates in eight distinct states (and the District of Columbia), the Republican candidates were asked 719 total questions. By analyzing trends and questioning patterns that existed in 2012, we can develop some context for the 2015-16 debates. In this report, we present notable findings from our research. Perhaps the most striking insight from 2012: though Republican voters consistently said (in primary exit polls and surveys) that economic issues were their top priority in determining who to vote for, questions about the economy were largely underrepresented throughout the debates.

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“It’s the Year of the Independent”: An analysis of the 2022 Midterm Election

2022 Post Election Analysis

In this election, Republicans, Democrats and the media expected a significant Red Wave. Projections of Republicans winning 240 seats were not uncommon, and most had the number at 230 or higher. On election night, it was not clear that Republicans could reach 218, and it wasn’t until over a week later that media entities began calling the House for Republicans.

The obvious question is: Why didn’t a Red Wave materialize? While Republicans did a better job at turning out their base than Democrats, the key was Independents who made up 31% of the electorate, their highest percentage of the electorate 1984 forward. For Republicans, in the last 10 elections with a sitting Democratic President they had won Independents. In this election Republicans lost them.

This in-depth analysis, using Edison exit poll data, and Winning the Issues post-election study, reviews what happened and why.

Read the full analysis here.

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Roll Call: Beating up on Manchin and Sinema won’t fix the Biden agenda

In today’s Roll Call, the Winston Group’s David Winston argues that progressives are ignoring political realities in their attempt to push through the reconciliation bill.

Rather than take the political temperature down a notch, Biden’s shrill performance Monday was designed to appease an increasingly demanding progressive wing that believes it’s operating under a mandate for radical change.  No one better exemplifies that misguided notion than the head of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, Washington Rep. Pramila Jayapal, who tweeted this about the Build Back Better plan: “It’s President Biden’s agenda — and it’s why voters delivered Democrats the House, the Senate, and the White House. It’s too important to be left behind.”

With all due respect, Jayapal is flat-out wrong. Democrats seem to have forgotten that they gained only a tie in the Senate, and by the thinnest of margins — 13,471 votes, which is what Georgia Sen. David Perdue needed last fall to avoid the runoff he later lost. 

Read the full piece here.

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Roll Call: Odd couple Sanders and Manchin are 630 centuries apart

The Winston Group’s David Winston writes in today’s Roll Call about the divisions between moderate and liberal Democrats and the latest on the $3.5 trillion Build Back Better reconciliation bill.

Washington has perhaps never seen two members of the same party further apart in their economic beliefs and priorities. Yet Sanders and Manchin are tied to each other in fast-moving negotiations with vastly different goals. To provide some context as to how far apart $2 trillion is, think about this analogy.

The next million seconds is about 11 days; the next billion seconds is about 31 years; the next trillion seconds is about 315 centuries. At a rate of a dollar per second, a $2 trillion difference is the equivalent of about 630 centuries.

So, from a spending perspective, Manchin and Sanders, the Senate’s odd couple, are 630 centuries apart. And the House Democratic Caucus has a similar time and space problem. 

Read the full piece here.

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Taxing Capital Gains is Something Voters Get

By David Winston and Myra Miller

As we have raised before, the electorate has significant concerns about raising taxes in this fragile economic environment, particularly any tax increase that could impact small business. Voters believe that we need to do everything we can to help businesses get back on their feet so they can get Americans back to work to keep the economy moving in the right direction (70-18 believe-do not believe). 

To read the full piece, click here.