Stony Brook’s Department of Political Science hosted the “Assessing the 2024 Presidential and Congressional Election Campaign” panel in the Charles B. Wang Center Theater on Wednesday, Oct. 30 from 12:30 p.m. to 2 p.m.
The panel was moderated by Leonie Huddy, a distinguished political science professor and chair of the department. Huddy started off the event by highlighting the importance of facilitating these discussions in light of the upcoming presidential election on Tuesday, Nov. 5.
“Our goal in presenting these sessions is to help you think about this election analytically [and] give you some perspective,” Huddy said.
Huddy then introduced featured panelists from the Department of Political Science, consisting of Professor Eric Groenendyk, Toll Professor Stanley Feldman, Assistant Professor Andrew Engelhardt, Assistant Professor Brian Guay and Assistant Professor Stephanie DeMora.
Groenendyk was the first to speak. He began by talking on relevance of partisanship in the upcoming election, defining the term and establishing the difference between identifying as a member of a political party and voting for one of them.
“To vote for a candidate or a party is to express a preference,” Groenendyk said. “When you say I identify as a Republican or as Democrat, it’s an expression of who you are [and] of your sense of self.”
Groenendyk explained people can be reluctant to change their political party because party identification and voting patterns can correlate with a person’s social or familial background. As a result, people may feel as if that change goes against who they are.
Afterward, Engelhardt talked about understanding what public opinion polls actually mean, especially during an election season.
Engelhardt emphasized how polling is an estimate and not a reflection of how Americans will vote on Nov. 5. He said that certain factors — such as people deciding not to vote or changing their opinion on which candidate to vote for — contribute to how polling may be an inaccurate representation of the American people.
“We might want to think about not just taking one public opinion poll [seriously], but think collectively about what public opinion polls together are telling us, which leads us to paying attention to what are known as polling averages,” Engelhardt said.
After Engelhardt finished presenting, Guay spoke on the spread of political and electoral misinformation. He opened by citing the election of 1800 between former presidents John Adams and Thomas Jefferson as an early example of misinformation, specifically when Adams’ supporters fabricated the claim that Jefferson died to gain votes for his cause.
As a political psychologist, Guay discussed the importance of recognizing the roles and responsibilities that elite members of society, such as members of Congress, have in telling citizens the truth; this concept, however, has recently begun to erode.
“With this erosion of the norm of telling the truth among elites, politicians and candidates [they] will pick up on this misinformation that they see online or [that] others show them and they’ll spread it to the whole country … This is a huge problem that I think we’re not talking about enough and not really studying enough right now as researchers,” Guay said.
He then shifted the discussion to the reasoning behind spreading misinformation, connecting it to Groenendyk’s commentary about the correlation between an individual’s identity and political affiliation. Guay explained how political identities can cause people to believe information that is advantageous for their party.
“You want to believe things and share things that are going to support your identity. It makes you feel good about yourself. It makes you feel good to put the other side down … Everyone is trying to support their own team,” Guay said.
Guay’s second reason for the circulation of misinformation was a growing lack of digital literacy skills. He said that either not everyone can detect falsehoods or they get so swept up in the information posted on social media that they may not be paying attention to what is accurate.
He finished his presentation by addressing false narratives about the timing of the election results. Guay explained that due to Democrats’ tendencies to live in urban areas, it takes longer to count all the votes in comparison to Republican-leading districts in rural areas whose votes will likely be counted by the end of election day.
“You’re going to see that the map looks good for [former Presideont Donald] Trump at like 9 p.m. when all these election results are coming in. Then you’re going to see an influx of Democratic votes and there’s going to be narratives like there were in 2020 [and] in 2016 about how there’s some kind of fraud going on,” Guay said.
DeMora presented after Guay on the topic of voter turnout and how it gauges the health of American democracy.
DeMora spoke about organizations that encourage increased voter turnout rates. She mentioned the nonprofit organization UnidosUS, which is the largest Hispanic civil rights organization in the United States and has registered nearly a million voters. Another organization is Ask Every Student, which partners with universities across 38 states to encourage students to participate in politics.
“Higher voter turnout reflects a healthier democracy. When more people vote, we get a clearer picture of what the entire population wants, what you all want as young people, as students. It makes our government more representative … The government should ideally reflect the views and the needs of everybody. But if only a small percentage of eligible voters are actually voting, then a big chunk of society isn’t being heard,” DeMora said.
DeMora then reminded attendees that elected officials are meant to represent all citizens’ needs and wants, not a select minority.
Lastly, Feldman compared the 2020 presidential election to this year’s election to help anticipate what election day might look like if there were delays in announcing the results.
He compiled statistics from six swing states and showed how close President Joseph R. Biden and Trump were in the race. The lowest margins being a little over 10,000 votes in Arizona and the highest being 100,000 in Pennsylvania ultimately decided the election.
“Let’s hope we don’t end up [in a] very close election with a tight electoral college. It’s unlikely, but not impossible, and that gets us into a situation we are completely unprepared for … It [seems] there’s a very good chance that we’re going to be sitting [during election night] waiting for votes to be counted, in some cases, very slowly,” Feldman said.
Huddy ended the event by reminding attendees that at least 90% of voters are squared away with their votes because they identify as Republicans and Democrats. But, there are 10% of people, as mentioned by Feldman, who could sway the election.
“There are people who don’t know anything, and they’ve decided ‘I’m going to go and vote, and I have no idea.’ These are the 100,000 people in certain states who are determining the outcome of our election,” Huddy said.
