Columbia University professor Michael Chad Hoeppner analyzed Friday night’s Wisconsin Senate debate between Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin and her Republican challenger, Eric Hovde. Hoeppner has previously coached candidates who have stepped onto debate stages.
There is concern among Democrats that Baldwin (who has been in office since 2013) is either falling behind or losing her lead to some extent. Hoeppner believes she did what was necessary on Friday to maintain her position.
Communication expert weighs in on Wisconsin Senate debate
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By contrast, Hoeppner observed that businessman Hovde appeared somewhat rattled. He noted that Hovde had very few non-influencies — stumbles or mistakes — in the debate.
ABC News’ Jay O’Brien sat down with Hoeppner to discuss more about the debate, which took place in Madison.
ABC NEWS: The CEO of GK Training, Columbia University professor and author of the forthcoming book ‘Don’t Say Um’, Michael Chad Hoeppner, who’s going to analyze the candidates’ performance for us tonight. You’ve coached candidates before who have stepped on to debate stages like this.
The incumbent senator, Tammy Baldwin, she’s somewhat trailed potentially in some internal polling. There’s a concern from Democrats that she’s falling behind or at least losing her lead in some degree. Did she do what she needed to do tonight, in your view, to try to hold on to the position that she’s in in this race?
HOEPPNER: The answer is unequivocally yes, from my point of view, and here’s why. My point of view is the point of view of delivery. So most of the time that I’m coaching folks in presidential politics or elsewhere is about delivery, meaning how you say stuff, not just what you say. And the goal that she had tonight, in my opinion, was to come in and show that she still had the precision and the forcefulness to continue to fight.
When she’s at her worst, what you will see, is it, her eye gaze drifts down quite a lot and she has a lot more filler that creeps into her various answers. Tonight, you saw none of that. If anything, she was three, four, maybe even five X as precise as Hovde was tonight, which is not at all what we’ve seen in the footage over the last few weeks.
ABC NEWS: Well, firstly, I don’t want you to watch any tape of me in the future, but also secondly, when it comes to Eric Hovde, so often in these debates, we know that candidates try to manufacture a moment.
And there was this moment where Eric Hovde looked like he was trying to pull out his utility bill to demonstrate to voters that he lives in that state and try to accuse the senator of essentially not spending enough time in the state that she represents. What did you make of that and any other moments in this debate tonight?
HOEPPNER: Yeah, candidly, I think he looked a little rattled tonight. And I don’t mean that to pick on him, but rather to compare to the footage that he’s put forth in a lot of other situations in which you’ll see he’s incredibly precise with his word choice. He has very few non-fluencys. A non-fluency is a stumble, or an “Uh,” a mistake, or something like that.
But even in this moment that they clearly rehearsed, I mean, he had the bill in his jacket pocket. So they had planned this, even in that moment, which I can tell you from working behind the scenes, they rehearsed and rehearsed and rehearsed some more. Even in that moment, he got stuck on a couple of words and fumbled the line. So I think some of those things may have been missteps for him tonight.
ABC NEWS: Very quickly, if you’re a viewer and you’re watching these two spar with the sound off, as we know so many people do, although we encourage you not to, what would you take away from this debate?
HOEPPNER: The biggest thing is Tammy Baldwin’s eye contact. If you watch her questioning on Capitol Hill or anywhere else, you’ll see when she’s more unscripted, at times, her gaze can stray a little bit like this tonight. Now, she clearly went into this very prepared and the entire time she was up and looking at us through the camera’s lens.
Hovde on the other hand, had to bounce around over and over, wasn’t quite sure where to look. A couple of times, even missed whether the question was intended for him or not. Tammy Baldwin, the entire time was with us, demonstrating that she can stay focused on the people she’s fighting for, i.e. the viewers.
ABC NEWS: Now, I guess my question is, this is a race that’s going to be won on the margins and it’s so often pocketbook issues in the economy. We know that Hovde’s part of his pitch to voters is that he’s a businessman, that he’s going to focus on economic issues. Did he deliver in that argument tonight, in your view?
HOEPPNER: It’s hard to say because if you look at the policy positions, it was all over the map a little bit in terms of the different messaging he’s said before. Again, I think both candidates substantively did a decent job.
But if you’re looking at the sort of precision that he tackled these different categories in, I don’t really think his answers on economics stood out any more than some of his answers on foreign policy, abortion, even some of the farm issues facing Wisconsin.
ABC NEWS: Michael Chad Hoeppner, thank you so much for joining us tonight on this Friday night, breaking down that debate.
