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Topics and participation in the FOX Business Republican debate (November 2015)
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 Date: November 8, 2016 |
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This article analyzes the central themes of the Republican presidential debate held on November 10, 2015, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The transcript prepared by The Washington Post was used to measure candidate participation and audience engagement.[1]
To compare the statistics of this debate to the previous Republican debates, please see the analysis of topics and participation in the October 2015 CNBC Republican debate and the analysis of topics and participation in the September 2015 CNN Republican debate.
Segments
The fourth Republican presidential debate featured 17 unique discussion segments that mainly focused on economic issues. These discussion segments were measured by any shift in the theme of a discussion prompted by one of the moderators: Gerard Baker, Maria Bartiromo and Neil Cavuto.
- Minimum wage
- National debt and cutting federal spending
- Job creation
- Income inequality
- Media portrayal of candidates
- Economic impact of illegal immigration
- Technological advancement causing the loss of traditional jobs
- Entitlements
- Regulations on businesses
- Taxes
- The Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal (TPP)
- National security and foreign affairs
- The financial crisis and bailouts
- Hillary Clinton
- Tax loopholes and businesses leaving the country
- Climate change
- Closing statements
The FOX Business Network debate focused principally on economic issues, although the discussion did deviate from the primary subject matter in three out of the 17 segments, which instead discussed the media, foreign affairs and Hillary Clinton.[2]
Overall participation
Participation in a segment was defined by a substantive comment related to the segment's topic. Jokes and attempts to gain permission from a moderator to speak were not considered participatory speech acts. In some instances, candidates who participated in a segment diverted from the prompted topic.
Candidate participation by topic was well-balanced during the debate. Each candidate participated in six or seven discussion segments. The moderators frequently introduced a discussion segment but only asked one candidate for his or her opinion on the subject. Seven of the 17 discussion segments involved only one candidate. Excluding the closing statements, the discussion segments on taxes and foreign affairs involved the greatest number of candidates participating. Only Kasich was left out of the segment on taxes, despite his best efforts to address the issue, while Cruz was left out of the discussion on national security and foreign affairs.[1]
Candidate participation by speaking time
Politico reported on the number of minutes each candidate spoke during the debate.[3] Ted Cruz spoke for the longest amount of time, nearly two minutes more than John Kasich, who occupied the next largest chunk of time. Jeb Bush and Ben Carson were the only two candidates to speak for less than 10 minutes.
Candidate participation by segment vs. speaking time
The amount of time a candidate spoke did not necessarily align with the number of issues he or she covered during the debate. For example, despite the fact that Ted Cruz discussed one fewer topic than Jeb Bush, Cruz spoke for nearly four minutes more than Bush did.
Audience engagement
Audience engagement was measured by noting the instances of applause, cheering or laughter in The Washington Post's transcript. Footage from the debate was consulted where the text was ambiguous regarding which candidate the audience was responding to. Multiple expressions of positive audience engagement during one speech act were marked as a single instance of audience engagement. Paul and Trump received the warmest response from the crowd, while Kasich failed to resonate with the audience. The chart below shows Fiorina with a small number of distinct positive audience engagements, but in actuality the audience responded well to her. She often received multiple instances of applause during her lengthy discussions of topics, but because they took place in a single speech act, they were only counted once.
Despite Trump's high number of positive reactions from the audience, he also drew boos from the crowd when he questioned why Fiorina "keep[s] interrupting everybody." Kasich was the only other candidate to be booed by the audience, when he tried explaining how he would distinguish which banks and people to bail out in a financial crisis.[1]
Candidate speech analysis
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See also
- Presidential candidates, 2016
- Presidential election, 2016/Polls
- 2016 presidential candidate ratings and scorecards
- Presidential election, 2016/Straw polls
Footnotes
