“He is the riskiest candidate standing on this stage”: social, verbal, and nonverbal aggression in the 2020 Democratic primary debates

U.S. presidential debates remain among the most watched political media despite their increasing levels of incivility. The 2020 Democratic primary debates were distinct as a record number of candidates sought to unseat a controversial Republican incumbent and fought against perceived party outsiders. This study content analyzes how Democratic candidates engaged in social aggression, a form of incivility attacking self-esteem and reputation with the goal to get ahead. Specifically, I examine how social, verbal, and nonverbal aggression were used by frontrunners and trailing candidates, whether populist candidates perpetrated aggression differently from non-populists, and differences by gender. Results revealed no significant differences in perpetrated aggression between the frontrunner and trailing candidates, nor between populists and non-populists. However, female candidates engaged in proportionally more social aggression than male candidates, who engaged in proportionally more verbal aggression than female candidates.