Reexamining the Effects of Electoral Competition on Negative Advertising

• Published date: 01 January 2022
• Date: 01 January 2022
• DOI: 10.1177/1532673X211042001
• Subject Matter: Articles

2022, Vol. 50(1) 45 –51

https://doi.org/10.1177/1532673X211042001

American Politics Research

© The Author(s) 2021

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DOI: 10.1177/1532673X211042001

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Article

Researchers have long studied how negative campaigning—

that is, campaign messages in which one candidate criticizes

another—affects political cognitions and behavior (Lau &

Rovner, 2009; Lau et al., 2007). Less attention has been

given to the decision to go negative, but some prior research

suggests that some characteristics of campaigns like elec-

toral competition can encourage candidates to use more neg-

ative campaign strategies (Kahn & Kenney, 2004; Lau &

Redlawsk, 2001). Druckman et al. (2010) further examine

how incumbency status conditions the effects of competition

on negative campaign advertising, but do not observe any

differences in the way that incumbents, challengers, and

open seat candidates respond to competition. Why might

candidates be more open to engaging in negative campaign-

ing when contests are more competitive?

Competition encourages citizens to use considerations

beyond incumbency status (Kahn & Patrick, 1999) when

deciding whom to support. This gives candidates—espe-

cially incumbents—an incentive to criticize their opponents.

Negative messages are more memorable than others (Brians

& Wattenberg, 1996) and tend to encourage people to think

about avoiding costs (Lau, 1982, 1985). Negativity appears

to convey more information to citizens than do non-negative

messages (Freedman et al., 2004). Candidates may also feel

compelled to defend themselves against the attacks leveled

at them by their opponents (Carsey et al., 2011), perhaps to

shore up perceived weaknesses, to reveal the weaknesses of

their opponents, or to satisfy party activists and donors.

Competition, then, pushes candidates to criticize their oppo-

nents and those criticisms then lead candidates to use more

negative messaging strategies as they respond to their oppo-

nents’ critiques.

I argue that incumbency status conditions the effects of

competition on negative advertising strategies. More specifi-

cally, the behavior of incumbents should be more powerfully

informed by competition than should the behavior of chal-

lengers and open seat contestants for at least reasons. First,

challengers and candidates contesting open seats—that is,

non-incumbent candidates—are generally less well-known

than incumbents and may need to use negative messages to

get attention from citizens (Skaperdas & Grofman, 1995;

Theilmann & Wilhite, 1998) and the news media. Second,

non-incumbents may use negativity to make it appear as if

they are engaging in debate with their opponents. Incumbents,

on the other hand, generally avoid acknowledging their

opponents unless pressured to do so by competition (Denton

et al., 2019). Thus, I expect incumbents to engage in more

negative campaigns as competition increases while non-

incumbents ought to use negative messages regardless of the

competitiveness of their contest.

In this research note, I reexamine the classic finding that

competition leads to more negative campaigns and further

observe the degree to which the effects of competitions are

conditioned by incumbency status. This is a useful exercise

1042001APRXXX10.1177/1532673X211042001American Politics ResearchBanda

research-article2021

1Texas Tech University, Lubbock, USA

Corresponding Author:

Kevin K. Banda, Texas Tech University, 113 Holden Hall, Boston and

Akron Streets, Lubbock, TX 79409, USA.

Email: kevin.banda@ttu.edu

Reexamining the Effects of Electoral

Competition on Negative Advertising

Kevin K. Banda1

Abstract

Prior research suggests that campaigns become more negative when the election environment becomes more competitive.

Much of this research suffers from data and design limitations. I replicate and extend prior analyses using a much larger

number of cases. Using advertising data drawn from 374 U.S. Senate and gubernatorial campaigns contested from 2000

through 2018, I find evidence that electoral competition encourages candidates to engage in more negative advertising

campaigns and that incumbency status conditions these effects. Incumbents of both parties use more negative messaging

strategies as competition increases. The effects of competition among challengers and open seat candidates is mixed. These

results add to what we know about campaign advertising behavior and suggest that researchers should take care to avoid

ignoring important contextual factors that underlie candidates’ strategic choices.

Keywords

negative advertising, campaigns, campaign messaging