The Ritual Art of Losing: What concession speeches borrow from poetry, performance, and political survival

By Laura Simões, MBA, PhD

Elizabeth Bishop wrote, "The art of losing isn't hard to master," and I've come to think of political defeat speech as its own kind of art.

New Hampshire voters have picked their nominees for the November election. John Sununu beat Scott Brown for the Republican Senate nomination. Chris Pappas beat Karishma Manzur on the Democratic side. We have our nominees for Governor, Congress and more. Which means in New Hampshire last night, several candidates stood in front of a room of exhausted, disappointed supporters and did something that sounds simple but almost never is. They admitted they lost.

If you watched any of those speeches, you probably weren't thinking about linguistics. But it turns out concession speeches follow a script, an unwritten set of rules that candidates across parties, decades, and personalities all seem to know by heart. Understanding that script tells you a lot about what's actually happening when a candidate concedes, and why it matters more than it might seem.

We tend to think of a concession speech as an act of grace, that a losing candidate is being a "good sport." That's not wrong, but it undersells what's really going on. When a candidate concedes, they're not just describing an outcome, they're doing something with their words that changes the political reality. Before the speech, the election result is just a number. After the speech, it's legitimate. The defeated candidate's public acceptance is part of what makes the winner's authority real in the eyes of supporters who might otherwise refuse to accept it.

That's a strange amount of power for a losing candidate to hold but what they say, and how they say it, is worth paying attention to. My doctoral research on these speeches shows that certain phrases show up again and again, almost word-for-word, across candidates who have nothing else in common politically. That repetition isn't coincidence or a lack of imagination. It's a sign that candidates are performing something closer to a ritual than a spontaneous speech.

Here's what I listen for:

"I called my opponent to congratulate them."

This is probably the single most important sentence in any concession speech. It sounds like a courtesy update, but it's doing something bigger, because publicly declaring a private phone call transforms the winner's status. Before that call, the winner is just a person with more votes. With the “phone call,” the top vote getter becomes the legitimate nominee for elected office, and the outcome is ratified by the very person who lost.

Scott Brown's concession last night offered a rare, almost literal version of this ritual. The congratulatory call itself happened live, when Sununu, returned Brown’s concession call as Brown stood at the microphone in front of his own supporters. Brown congratulated Sununu and offered his support on the public call. Most candidates describe the phone call after the fact, as something that already happened backstage. We got to watch the legitimizing act unfold in real time, which only made the ritual more visible than it usually is.

"The people have spoken."

This phrase, or some version of it, shows up constantly because it does something clever: it shifts responsibility for the loss away from the candidate and onto the voters themselves. The losing candidate is bowing to the collective will of the electorate. That's a much easier thing to accept gracefully, and it reinforces the idea that the process itself, not just this particular result, deserves respect.

Thank-yous, piled on top of thank-yous.

Concession speeches are often stuffed with gratitude toward staff, volunteers, and family. This isn't just politeness or padding for time. It's the candidate managing a tricky transition, turning "my campaign" into "our movement.” The candidate is creating something bigger than one failed candidacy and this new creation can survive the loss. Listen for how a candidate talks about their supporters' future, not just their past effort. That's often where you'll hear whether they're closing a chapter or planting a flag (or campaign sign) for next time.

"I'm sorry."

Apology is rarer than you'd think in American concession speeches, and when it does appear, it's carefully aimed. Candidates apologize for not winning, not for running, not for their beliefs. Listen for the difference between "I'm sorry I let you down" and "I'm sorry we couldn't pull this off." The second version spreads the disappointment across the whole campaign rather than making it personal. It’s a small linguistic choice that protects the candidate's standing, even in defeat.

These small, repeated rituals are part of what keeps peaceful transitions of power actually peaceful. A concession isn't legally required in the United States, and nothing compels a losing candidate to say these things. We saw exactly that in 2020, when Donald Trump refused to concede to Joe Biden. But when a concession speech does happen, and happens in a recognizable and public way, it also sends a message the rest of us depend on without usually noticing: that losing an election is something you can survive, publicly and with dignity, and that doing so is part of what makes the whole system trustworthy.

Concessions are always worth listening for. Not just last night, but in every race this election season, when candidates from New Hampshire and around the country will have to deliver this same kind of speech for the first time this cycle. Elizabeth Bishop was right. Losing may not be hard to master, but losing well is the harder work of art.

On to November!