Effectiveness of Negative Campaigning in U.S. Senate Elections

Abstract

ate campaigns with an original aggregate data set and ANES survey data. We ask a simple question: how effective is negative campaigning in helping to get candidates elected? Our results provide no straightforward answer. Generally speaking, but dependent on the opponent's strategy, negative campaigning is relatively effective for challengers, while positive campaigning is more effective for incumbents. Overall, our results do provide clear evidence that the cam? paign matters. Democracy is a dialogue between putative leaders and citizens. Campaigns provide the most obvious and the loudest forums for this dialogue. Candidates try to persuade voters to cast a ballot and to support their cause. Voters respond by coming to the polls and selecting their preferred candidates. The quality of the dialogue can wane, however, if candidates speak poorly or if voters close their ears. Concern for the democratic dialogue in the United States often turns to negative campaigning. American politics over the past two decades has experienced a dramatic rise in its use, particularly in political advertising (Ansolabehere and Iyengar 1995; Jamieson 1992; Johnson-Cartee and Copeland 1991; West 1993)?or at least a dramatic increase in the number of political observers decrying its use. Although empirical evidence about the type of political advertisements actually used during this period (much less earlier) is hard to come by, the limited available data do indicate a noticeable increase?at least at the presidential level (Geer 1998a; Kaid and Johnston 1991; West 1993). Negative campaigning may be on the rise because it is generally presumed that these methods, particularly in the form of televised advertising, are an unusually effective means of campaigning, a real advantage to those candidates who have the backbone to employ it. Social psychological theory provides several reasons why negative information ought to be more persuasive than comparable positive information (Kanouse and Hanson 1972). Lau (1982,1985) groups these reasons into two main categories. The first is perceptual: negative information may be more likely than compa? rable positive information to be noticed and processed, thereby having the opportunity to get its message across. The second reason is motivational, based on the greater survival benefits resulting from avoiding costs rather than approaching gains. Less formally, some negative campaigning may be