The 2024 Republican primaries are fast approaching. And for candidates running for President, image matters more than ever.
The average U.S. president is about two inches taller than the average American man who is 5′9′'. So, do voters like tall presidents? One study found... it definitely does.
Voters see tall politicians as better suited for leadership because they’re seen as physically imposing, according to that study, published by Social Science Quarterly.
Barack Obama is 6′2″ and Donald Trump 6′3″, while President Joe Biden is 6 feet tall.
There’s been a lot of speculations over what kind of shoes the Florida Governor wears. A hashtag “bootgate” took social media by storm as posts mocking DeSantis have been racking up millions of views.
Rumor has it that DeSantis has adopted a wardrobe trick to juice his stats. He is known for wearing black cowboy boots. Thanks to this trick, DeSantis has allegedly added over two inches to his height.
According to the Washington Post, only six presidential candidates who were shorter than their opponents won their elections between 1916 and 2012.
Here is Kamy Akhavan, Executive Director of USC Center for the Political Future.
Kamy Akhavan, Executive Director of USC Center for the Political Future: “It is true that, at least during the age of television, taller candidates tended to do better than shorter candidates. That is a fact.”
DeSantis has been vigorously denying the rumors. But shoe experts say that they believe he is wearing height-boosting insoles to pump himself up against a potential Donald Trump primary frontrunner.
Zephan Parker, a bootmaker said in an interview for Politico that he has made height-increasing cowboy boots for a number of politicians, including DeSantis.
Stature, height and body language are soft weapons that politicians use to dominate their opponents during debates.
Luke Lamontour, who is a Junior majoring in French, says voters might not think that height and appearance matter that much, but they do.
Luke Lamontour:” I think that appearance plays a lot in personal bias and in what we support and what we like.”
But physical features are not everything as Akhavan says.
Kamy Akhavan: “The perception of tallness is more in the mythology categories than in the reality category. But correlation is not causation, and many factors will determine a candidate success and people who are not 6 feet and above have wielded tremendous global power.”
For Annenberg Media, I’m Thomas Legrand.