With emotions running high for many this election year, Washington State University researchers observed a group of Republican and Democratic voters as they watched Tuesday night’s presidential debate — and were surprised by what they found.
Paul Bolls, co-director of WSU’s Media Mind Lab, and professor and researcher Yen-I Lee wanted to measure how a group of 36 people would react while watching the debate.
Bolls said the 36 people were split evenly between supporters of former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris and wore ring-like sensors that monitored their emotional responses as they watched. The team looked at participants’ sweat glands as a marker of sympathetic nervous system activity.
One of their findings centered on the Trump supporters’ perception of Harris.
“The Trump campaign so far is not able to get Republicans to perceive Harris as a threat the way the Harris campaign seems to be getting Democrats to pretty strongly perceive that Trump is a threat,” Bolls said.
Bolls said he did a similar test back in 2016 and analyzed emotional responses to Trump and Hillary Clinton, where it showed stronger feelings concerning the election than this time around.
“Back then, in 2016, it was clear that Trump was able to get Republicans highly and strongly unfavorably activated against Clinton, and that does not appear to be happening in this election,” he said.
Bolls also said for this year’s emotional response test, each participant was awarded a $50 gift card and asked a few questions after the debate — including whether they would donate any of the money from their gift card to their preferred candidate.
Democrats were more likely to donate their money, with an average of $10, while the average Republicans said they would donate $5, although there were multiple people from both parties who weren’t willing to donate at all.
“What that tells me is that this emotional resonance in Democrats that Harris activated last night, it does translate into a higher likelihood of energizing subsequent political behavior, and that’s not happening as much with Republicans and their candidate Trump,” Bolls said.
