{"id":867,"date":"2024-11-11T20:41:04","date_gmt":"2024-11-11T20:41:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.electionanalysis.ws\/us\/?page_id=867"},"modified":"2024-11-15T15:30:43","modified_gmt":"2024-11-15T15:30:43","slug":"harris-missed-an-opportunity-to-sway-swing-voters-by-not-morally-reframing-her-message","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.electionanalysis.ws\/us\/president2024\/section-4-candidates-and-the-campaign\/harris-missed-an-opportunity-to-sway-swing-voters-by-not-morally-reframing-her-message\/","title":{"rendered":"Harris missed an opportunity to sway swing voters by not morally reframing her message"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Prof. John H. Parmelee<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Professor and Director of the School of Communication at the University of North Florida. Academic research interests include how technology impacts political communication.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

E-mail: jparmele@unf.edu<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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U.S. Election 2024<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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36. The tilted playing field, and a bygone conclusion<\/a> (Dr David Karpf)
37. Looking forwards and looking back: Competing visions of America in the 2024 presidential campaign<\/a> (Prof John Rennie Short)
38. Brat went splat: Or the emotional sticky brand won again<\/a> (Prof Ken Cosgrove)
39. Election 2024: Does money matter anymore?<\/a> (Prof Cayce Myers)
40. Advertising trends in the 2024 presidential race<\/a> (Prof Travis N. Ridout, Prof Michael M. Franz, Prof Erika Franklin Fowler)
41. Who won the ground wars? Trump and Harris field office strategies in 2024<\/a> (Sean Whyard, Dr Joshua P. Darr)
42. Kamala Harris: Idealisation and persecution<\/a> (Dr Amy Tatum)
43. Kamala Harris campaign failed to keep Democratic social coalition together<\/a> (Prof Anup Kumar)
44. Revisiting Indian-American identity in the 2024 U.S. presidential election<\/a> (Dr Madhavi Reddi)
45. Harris missed an opportunity to sway swing voters by not morally reframing her message<\/a> (Prof John H. Parmelee)
46. In pursuit of the true populist at the dawn of America\u2019s golden age<\/a> (Dr Carl Senior)
47. Language and the floor in the 2024 Harris vs Trump televised presidential debate<\/a> (Dr Sylvia Shaw)
48. Nullifying the noise of a racialized claim: Nonverbal communication and the 2024 Harris-Trump debate<\/a> (Prof Erik P. Bucy)
49. A pseudo-scientific revolution? The puzzling relationship between science deference and denial<\/a> (Dr Matt Motta)
50. Amidst recent lows for women congressional candidates, women at the state level thrive<\/a> (Dr Jordan Butcher)<\/p>\n\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Millions of people watch the Democratic and Republican national conventions every four years to learn about and evaluate the presidential candidates. In 2024, there were 28.9 million viewers for Kamala Harris\u2019 acceptance address and 28.4 million for Donald Trump\u2019s acceptance speech. A presidential nomination acceptance address is an important opportunity to speak to both the party faithful and politically independent swing voters, which can increase a candidate\u2019s electability. A growing body of research on the concept of moral reframing shows that an effective way for politicians to sway voters who are not members of their political party is to use language that matches those voters\u2019 moral values. By that standard, Harris\u2019 acceptance speech represents a missed opportunity to expand her base of support, while Trump morally reframed more often.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moral reframing is part of Moral Foundations Theory<\/a> (MFT), which argues that conservatives are more persuaded by appeals focused on the moral values of loyalty\/betrayal, authority\/subversion, and sanctity\/degradation, while liberals are moved by care\/harm and fairness\/cheating moral appeals. Based on these insights, moral reframing research<\/a> has demonstrated that those on the political left and right can have their views and voting preferences changed when presented with arguments that are consistent with their moral values. For example, conservatives are more supportive of same-sex marriage and universal healthcare when those political positions are argued using loyalty and sanctity moral values, respectively. Liberals increase their support of high military spending when exposed to a fairness moral appeal. Interestingly, morally reframing an issue changes more minds<\/a> than compromising on an issue, while failing to reframe an issue can harden voters\u2019 existing views<\/a>. Moreover, reframing issues to speak the moral language of the other side does not upset a candidate\u2019s core ideological supporters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a result, there was a real incentive for Harris and Trump to morally reframe when they discussed their political views. Doing so could help broaden their coalition. To find out how successful each candidate was at moral reframing, I examined the transcripts of their acceptance speeches (as provided by The American Presidency Project<\/a> at the University of California at Santa Barbara) using eMFDScore, an open-source Python library based on the extended Moral Foundations Dictionary<\/a> (eMFD), which includes thousands of words related to the five moral values of Moral Foundations Theory. Whenever a passage in the transcripts included words in the eMFD, eMFDScore determined which of the five moral foundations was the most dominant. Transcript passages from Harris were deemed to be morally reframed if eMFDScore found that loyalty\/betrayal, authority\/subversion, or sanctity\/degradation moral values dominated. Trump\u2019s passages were considered morally reframed if care\/harm or fairness\/cheating values dominated. Also, eMFDScore determined whether the sentiment of the dominant moral foundation in each passage was positive or negative. In addition to analyzing the whole transcripts of Harris and Trump, eMFDScore examined specific passages dealing with the top issues of Americans, according to Gallup<\/a> polling in July 2024: poor leadership, immigration, economy in general, inflation, and unifying the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Findings indicate that Trump morally reframed more than Harris. Of the five top issues examined, Trump reframed all but leadership, and his whole transcript was also morally reframed. Harris reframed only the economy and leadership. For example, Harris\u2019 reframing of the economy used loyalty\/betrayal moral appeals to make the case that she is loyal to the middle class while Trump betrays middle-class voters in favor of billionaires:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I will bring together labor and workers, and small-business owners and entrepreneurs and American companies to create jobs, to grow our economy, and to lower the cost of everyday needs like health care and housing and groceries. We will provide access to capital for small-business owners and entrepreneurs and founders. And we will end America’s housing shortage, and protect Social Security and Medicare. Now compare that to Donald Trump, because I think everyone here knows he doesn\u2019t actually fight for the middle class. Not, he doesn\u2019t actually fight for the middle class. Instead, he fights for himself and his billionaire friends.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An example of Trump\u2019s reframing is seen in his discussion of immigration, which includes care\/harm moral language to argue that his opponent\u2019s border policy is hurting Americans:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Today, our cities are flooded with illegal aliens. Americans are being squeezed out of the labor force and their jobs are taken. By the way, you know who’s taking the jobs, the jobs that are created? One hundred and seven percent of those jobs are taken by illegal aliens. And you know who\u2019s being hurt the most by millions of people pouring into our country? The Black population and the Hispanic population. Because they’re taking the jobs from our Black population, our Hispanic population. And they\u2019re also taking them from unions. The unions are suffering because of it.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fact that Trump morally reframed more than Harris is not surprising given that previous research<\/a> has found that Republican presidential candidates are five times more likely than Democratic candidates to reframe. Surprising or not, the lack of moral reframing by Harris means she missed a chance to craft a message that could feel morally familiar to, and therefore resonate with, a broader spectrum of voters in an increasingly polarized country. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Prof. John H. Parmelee Professor and Director of the School of Communication at the University of North Florida. Academic research interests include how technology impacts political communication. E-mail: jparmele@unf.edu Millions of people watch the Democratic and Republican national conventions every four years to learn about and evaluate the presidential candidates. In 2024, there were 28.9 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":1012,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-867","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\nHarris missed an opportunity to sway swing voters by not morally reframing her message - Election Analysis - United States<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.electionanalysis.ws\/us\/president2024\/section-4-candidates-and-the-campaign\/harris-missed-an-opportunity-to-sway-swing-voters-by-not-morally-reframing-her-message\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Harris missed an opportunity to sway swing voters by not morally reframing her message - Election Analysis - United States\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Prof. John H. Parmelee Professor and Director of the School of Communication at the University of North Florida. Academic research interests include how technology impacts political communication. E-mail: jparmele@unf.edu Millions of people watch the Democratic and Republican national conventions every four years to learn about and evaluate the presidential candidates. 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