Late-campaign general election debates are often more curiosity than determinative in influencing all but the most undecided of voters. Most face-to-face candidate clashes consist of a rehash of platform pledges, past achievements, and well-worn attacks on opponents, while hoping to induce or avoid a blatant blunder or loss of composure in the last laps before Election Day.
A 2019 Harvard Business School study of 62 elections in nine countries that included 56 televised debates found the vast majority of voters who change their minds about who they are going to vote for during the course of a campaign do so long before the final weeks, and are rarely dissuaded by what they see or hear during a debate in the final weeks before casting ballots….