Political communication in U. S. Senate campaign victory and concession speeches

This qualitative study investigates how candidates for the U.S. Senate make persuasive use of interactional techniques and strategies in victory and concession speeches to manage impressions and create positive presentations of self as candidates, politicians, and persons. The analysis shows how concessions and victory claims are constructed, how concession phone calls to the winning candidate are described, and how candidates manage audience responses to references to these issues in the concession or victory speeches. Given political polarization and division in current U. S. politics, better understanding of political communication in victory and concession speeches may be useful for analytical and practical purposes, and may also provide a foundation for future studies of shifting norms for this genre of political communication.