Do negative campaign ads work?
Voters seem to be increasingly turned off by negative campaign ads and mudslinging, but that hasn’t deterred political candidates from using these tactics. Is there any evidence of voter backlash against negative campaigning? Or do candidates persist in using negative campaign tactics because they still work? There is a broadly held public sentiment that political campaigning is more negative and unethical than it has ever been. Whether this is historically true or not, however, is the subject of some debate. Politicians have long thrown mud at each other and the history of negative campaigning reaches back to the earliest days of this nation. Then as today, rumor and gossip feed a press and public hungry for scandalous tales. Setting aside the question of whether or not things have gotten worse, there remain to be addressed important questions about the effects of negative campaigning. However, clear answers to these questions are not readily forthcoming because research on negative c
