How to win a US presidential election — reminder

As the US presidential election ramps up, let me remind you of our conclusions about the language patterns used by winners. Since 1992, the winner is the candidate who:

1. uses high levels of positive language;
2. avoids all negative language;
3. stays away from policy and talks in generalities
4. doesn’t talk about the opposing candidate

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0261379416302062

The reason this works is that the choices made by voters are not driven by rational choice but by a more immediate appeal of the candidate as a person. The media doesn’t believe in these rules, and constantly tries to drive candidates to do the opposite. For first time candidates this pressure often works, which is partly why incumbents tend to do well in presidential elections.

But wait, you say. How did Trump win last time? The answer is that, although he doesn’t do well on 2 and 4, Hillary Clinton did very poorly on all four. So it wasn’t that Trump won, so much as that Hillary Clinton lost.

Based on this model, and its historical sucess, Biden is doing pretty much exactly what he needs to do.