US Presidential election debates - Lessons for the UK

First a disclaimer, the US is not the UK. US politics is different to UK politics. The electorate, electoral system and electoral history are different. Presidential elections are not the same as parliamentary elections. Having said that, here's some thoughts...

The general consensus was that Romney won the first debate (while Obama was practically asleep) but then the remaining two debates were either slim Obama leads or a draw. There was some correlation between the debates and movements in opinion polls but it is very hard to link winning a debate with winning an election. I think a key lesson is how the debates clearly framed the election as a two-horse race (Romney and Obama) rather than exposing voters to the range of parties with presidential candidates standing. Both the Libertarians and Greens were on the ballots in most states but not in the debates. One of my favourite podcasts, Democracy Now, created some election debate specials "Expanding the Debate" where they paused the broadcast debates to let the additional candidates contribute at the appropriate points - an interesting approach to take (although it meant that the debates were even longer!).

As far as the UK goes, the 2010 debates were between the top three parties (although there were additional Scottish and Welsh versions). The simple fact of having Nick Clegg having an equal platform as Gordon Brown and David Cameron, clearly raised his profile and lifted the party in the opinion polls (if not ultimately votes).

A key question for the 2015 debates will be whether to include UKIP (especially if they are polling similar to the Lib Dems and standing in most constituencies). Clearly the Tory's wouldn't want it but Labour and the Lib Dems would (as long as the Greens weren't also given a platform). I expect that UKIP will do well in the 2014 Euro elections so i think it will be very hard to excluded them from the 2015 debates. The negotiations will be interesting...