Campaign Tactics and the Decision to Attack

Theilmann, John M.; Wilhite, Allen

doi:10.2307/2647730

Cited by 68 publications

(64 citation statements)

References 4 publications

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“…Some studies have found no significant relationship between negativity and competitiveness (Lau and Pomper 2001;Lau and Pomper 2004;Herrnson and Lucas 2006). Yet other studies find that competitive elections are more negative (Theilmann and Wilhite 1998;Bratcher 2001;Goldstein and Freedman 2002).…”

Section: Determinants Of Negativitymentioning

confidence: 98%

“…Yet studies of Congressional primaries (Peterson and Djupe 2005) and general election campaigns (Tinkham and Weaver-Lariscy 1995;Weaver-Lariscy and Tinkham 1996;Fox 1997;Kahn and Kenney 1999;Lau and Pomper 2001;Bratcher 2001;Benoit 2007) have found that incumbents are less negative. This effect may be especially strong when the race is highly competitive (Sellers 1998;Theilmann and Wilhite 1998).…”

Section: Determinants Of Negativitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Attacks in other Presidential campaigns appear to be tit-for-tat with no significant effect based on partisanship (Kaid and Johnston 1991;Damore 2002). Yet there may be a mechanism for common Republican negativity: Republican strategists and voters are more likely to approve of negative advertising (see Theilmann and Wilhite 1998;Francia and Herrnson 2007).…”

Section: Determinants Of Negativitymentioning

confidence: 99%

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What (or Who) Makes Campaigns Negative?

Grossmann¹

2012

ARP

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Previous work on negative political advertising focuses on candidate characteristics and electoral circumstances; it reveals inconsistencies in the effects of party, incumbency, gender, and competitiveness. I argue that one important set of variables has been excluded: the consulting firms who produce candidate advertising may influence negativity. I explain variation in attack ads and negativity across campaigns for the U.S. House of Representatives in 2002 and 2004, finding that particular consulting firms run more negative campaigns, regardless of electoral circumstances. Idiosyncratic preferences of campaign consultants thus influence the character of campaigns.

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Section: Determinants Of Negativitymentioning

confidence: 98%

Section: Determinants Of Negativitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Determinants Of Negativitymentioning

confidence: 99%

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What (or Who) Makes Campaigns Negative?

Grossmann¹

2012

ARP

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“…It follows that, compared to incumbents, challengers will be significantly more likely to use negative rhetoric, with the hope of inducing voters to attend to their messages (also see Skaperdas and Grofman 1995, Theilmann and Wilhite 1998, Kahn and Kenney 1999, Herrnson 2008. Consistent with this prediction is the idea that advantaged incumbents avoid active advocacy (for fear of appearing insecure about the campaign).…”

Section: Negative Campaigningmentioning

confidence: 99%

Timeless Strategy Meets New Medium: Going Negative on Congressional Campaign Web Sites, 2002–2006

Druckman

Kifer

Parkin

2010

Political Communication

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Abstract:In a few short years, the World Wide Web has become a standard part of candidates' campaign tool kits. Virtually all candidates have their own sites; and voters, journalists, and activists visit the sites with increasing frequency. In this paper, we study what candidates do on these sites-in terms of the information they present-by exploring one of the most enduring and widely debated campaign strategies: "going negative." Comparing data from over 700 congressional candidate websites, over three election cycles (2002, 2004, and 2006), with television advertising data, we show that candidates go negative with similar likelihoods across these media. We also find that while similar dynamics drive negativity on the Web and in television advertising, there are some notable differences. These differences likely stem, in part, from the truncated sample available with television data (i.e., many candidates do not produce ads). Our results have implications for understanding negative campaigning, and for the ways in which scholars can study campaign dynamics.

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“…Furthermore, we expect candidates to launch attacks primarily "upward" at those with better prospects, having less incentive to attack those deemed less of a threat (Skaperdas and Grofman 1995 ;Thielmann and Wilhite 1998 ;Lau and Pomper 2001 ;Damore 2002 ;Druckman, Kifer, and Parkin 2010 ;Haynes and Rhine 1998 ). One open question is whether candidates will focus their attacks upon their leading competitor (Skaperdas and Grofman 1995 ) or go negative against multiple competitors.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Twitter Taunts and Tirades: Negative Campaigning in the Age of Trump

Gross

Johnson

2016

APSC

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What drives candidates to "go negative" and against which opponents? Using a unique dataset consisting of all inter-candidate tweets by the 17 Republican presidential candidates in the 2016 primaries, we assess predictors of negative aff ect online. Twitter is a free platform, and candidates therefore face no resource limitations when using it; this makes Twitter a wellspring of information about campaign messaging, given a level playing-fi eld. Moreover, Twitter's 140-character limit acts as a liberating constraint, leading candidates to issue sound bites ready for potential distribution not only online, but also through conventional media, as tweets become news. We fi nd tweet negativity and overall rate of tweeting increases as the campaign season progresses. Unsurprisingly, the front-runner and eventual nominee, Donald Trump, sends and receives the most negative tweets and is more likely than his opponents to strike out against even those opponents who are polling poorly. However, candidates overwhelmingly "punch upwards" against those ahead of them in the polls, and this pattern goes beyond attacks against those near the top. Sixty of 136 dyads are characterized by lopsided negativity in one direction and only one of these 60 involves a clearly higher status candidate on the off ensive.

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Campaign Tactics and the Decision to Attack

Cited by 68 publications

References 4 publications

What (or Who) Makes Campaigns Negative?

What (or Who) Makes Campaigns Negative?

Timeless Strategy Meets New Medium: Going Negative on Congressional Campaign Web Sites, 2002–2006

Twitter Taunts and Tirades: Negative Campaigning in the Age of Trump

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