The political ‘flip-flop’ attack doesn’t always pack a punch for voters
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It’s happened before: In 2004, two candidates prepped for the second presidential debate, moderated by ABC. Leading up to the political face-off, the Republican presidential campaign accused the Democratic candidate of flip-flopping on policy.
That race for the White House was between then-President George W. Bush and then-Sen. John Kerry.
During the October debate in St. Louis, Bush attacked Kerry for his shifting stance on the Iraq War. He argued Kerry shouldn't be president because the country needed a commander in chief who “is steadfast and strong and determined.” The flip-flop attack stuck and became a key moment of the debate and the 2004 presidential election.
While much has changed in last 20 years, presidential campaigns continue to level this sort of attack against one another — though it may not influence voters as much as the candidates hope.
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In recent weeks, former-President Donald Trump and his campaign have seized on shifts in Vice President Harris' stances on fracking, health care and immigration. Trump called Harris the “greatest flip-flopper” at a rally in Michigan.
Meanwhile, the Harris campaign criticized Trump for his “brazen flip-flops” on marijuana legalization and abortion. Just last month, Trump indicated he would vote in favor of an abortion-access amendment in Florida, before later clarifying he’ll vote no.
The talking points are likely to resurface during Tuesday night’s debate.
‘Consistency doesn’t really matter’
Despite how frequently candidates use the jabs, voters don't seem to mind a politician who flip-flops, according to University of Maryland politics professor Sarah Croco, who has conducted multiple national surveys on voter reaction to policy flip-flops.
“When I do survey experiments, I find that there’s really no political cost at all to someone who flips, so long as they flip to the position that the person taking the survey wants,” Croco said of surveys taken in 2016 and 2019. “Consistency doesn’t really matter to them, so long as you get to the right position.”
In the studies Croco conducted, a politician who flip-flops correctly is believed to have “seen the light.” The voter tends to give them some slack if they change their view — but not always.
“If you flip away from a person, that’s when all the critiques come out about like, ‘Oh, this person is really wishy washy,’” Croco said. “‘This person has no principles; this person’s a really dumb politician; they can’t even keep their position straight.’”
And during an increasingly polarized political environment, when voters align right and wrong with their political preference, the flip-flop jab becomes even less of a potent attack.
“Voters are generally so locked in to whichever candidate their party supports that I really don’t think these flip-flopping critiques are going to have that much of an effect,” Croco said.
The professor admitted, though, that not all flip-flops are alike.
The possible exception
Both Trump and Harris have shifted their policy positions during the presidential campaign.
Harris no longer favors a ban on fracking, dropped her support for Medicare for All, and backed a bipartisan immigration bill that would build more walls on the southern border — all departures from her 2020 presidential bid. Trump doesn't want to ban TikTok anymore, is open to legalizing marijuana, and has oscillated on abortion restrictions and bans — while maintaining the issue is up to the states.
To Croco, only one flip-flop issue could pose a serious threat during this election cycle: abortion. It’s a unique challenge to the Trump campaign in that while abortion access is widely shown to be the winning political position to flip to — it could simultaneously ostracize voters who oppose abortion rights.
“I think the GOP realizes they need to kind of find a different position on this, but that’s really hard for them to do without alienating the evangelical voters of the GOP,” Croco said. “So I think that’s going to be difficult for them.”
When asked whether Harris’ shifting stance on immigration or energy policy could pose a similar risk, Croco didn’t think it would to the same degree.
“A lot of the times it’s just that the [Harris] campaign has not issued a new position yet, or they might say she’s silent on this issue now, whereas she had this opinion in 2020,” Croco said. “To me, those come across as weaker attacks, because they aren’t on issues that have this clear, kind of binary choice.”
Harking back to the Bush versus Kerry 2004 debate, Croco said the support for or against the Iraq War was a stark, binary position during that election. It’s flip-flops on issues like these that pose political risk — and can define a debate.
“So yeah, I would not be surprised at all if this comes up at the debate,” Croco said.
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