Candidate Attacks and Voter Aversion The Uncertain Effects of Negative Campaigning

0 Candidate Attacks and Voter Aversion: The Uncertain Effects of Negative Campaigning April 2005 John Sides University of Texas at Austin jsides@gov.utexas.edu Keena Lipsitz Matthew Grossmann Christine Trost University of California, Berkeley Abstract Researchers have found it difficult to show that negative campaigning decreases voter turnout We propose a cognitive model of response to negative campaigning that helps explain this inconclusive research Any connection between negativity and the turnout decision requires a series of “steps” for voters: the actual reception of negative messages, an unfavorable evaluation of these messages, the generalization of this evaluation to the candidates or campaign as a whole, and the decision to respond by staying home on Election Day Drawing on survey data, content analysis of candidate advertising, and focus groups, we demonstrate that there is “slippage” at each step, undermining any relationship between negativity and turnout I Introduction Americans love to hate both negative advertising and political campaigns The conventional wisdom is that these aversions must be related The contention among some scholars that negative advertising leads to lower turnout (Ansolabehere and Iyengar 1995; Ansolabehere et al 1999) also implies this relationship: voters’ distaste for negativity produces dissatisfaction with the candidates and the campaign, which leads voters to stay home on Election Day However, the connection between negative campaigning, dissatisfaction with the candidates and campaigns, and lower turnout is far from universal or certain, as a variety of studies attest (e.g., Clinton and Lapinski 2004; Finkel and Geer 1998; Freedman and Goldstein 1999; Goldstein and Freedman 2002; Kahn and Kenney 1999; Lau and Pomper 2004; Lau et al 1999; Vavreck 2000; Wattenberg and Brians 1999) We believe the current debate is inconclusive because it is largely atheoretical in terms of how voters process campaign messages To move forward, we must unpack the cognitive process by which an individual’s experience with negative campaigning might affect her intention to vote We argue that “demobilization” is not an inevitable consequence of negative campaigning because voters’ perceptions of and responses to negative campaigning are more complex than simple aversion Any causal connection between negative campaigning and lower participation entails a series of “steps” in the voter’s mind: the actual reception of negative messages, an unfavorable evaluation of these messages, the generalization of this unfavorable reaction to the candidates or campaign as a whole, and the decision to respond by staying home on Election Day We argue that there is the potential for “slippage” at each step, suggesting that negative tactics have no deterministic effect on attitudes toward the campaign and ultimately on turnout We employ two studies to assess this process empirically First, drawing on a survey and a series of focus groups conducted during the 2002 California gubernatorial campaign, we examine voters’ response to negativity and its relationship to attitudes about the campaign and to vote intention Both the survey and focus groups reveal that voters not uniformly reject negativity They may even evaluate negative messages favorably if the messages contain information they deem useful Furthermore, multivariate analysis reveals a striking paradox: the attributes associated with more favorable views of negativity, notably political involvement, are associated with more dismal assessments of the candidates and campaigns Furthermore, these same attributes are strongly associated with vote intention Thus, those most likely to find negativity acceptable are also the least satisfied with the campaign but yet the most likely to intend to vote The tension inherent in these results suggests that, while negative advertising may be distasteful to many, it cannot wholly explain dissatisfaction with politicians and their campaigns or the decision to participate on Election Day Second, we use rolling cross-sectional surveys and television advertising data from the 1998 California and Illinois gubernatorial races to compare actual levels of negativity, as measured in advertising, with voters’ perceptions of the candidates’ behavior over the course of the campaigns We find that these perceptions are multi-dimensional: while actual levels of negativity affect whether voters believe the candidates are being “negative,” they not necessarily affect whether votes believe the candidates are providing “useful information.” This suggests that a “negative” advertisement may have some redeeming value to voters Moreover, there is again no significant relationship between actual or perceived levels of negativity and vote intention Both sets of evidence illustrate how the relationship between negative campaigning and citizen dissatisfaction with campaigns and participation on Election Day can break down at any stage of the cognitive process we describe II Theory and Expectations We argue that the effect of negative campaigning on voters depends crucially on how voters perceive and respond to it Few studies have attempted to “unpack” voter perception and response, focusing instead on the relationship between negative campaigning and such phenomena as turnout, political trust, and political efficacy We believe, however, that there is value in understanding the cognitive process that may lead to a decision not to vote Two recent studies have begun to move in this direction by arguing that voter perceptions of negativity may not accord with conventional wisdom Sigelman and Kugler (2003) show that negativity may mean different things to different people They examine three campaigns (including two we examine here)—the 1998 California, Illinois, and Georgia gubernatorial races—and argue that because most Americans “perceive political campaigns dimly,” their assessments of negativity are colored by numerous biases As a result, Americans simply not perceive negativity in ways that correspond to how political scientists typically define it, nor Americans agree with each other about what is negative In contrast, Kahn and Kenney (1999) argue that the problem is not that citizens disagree about what is negative but that they “distinguish between legitimate and tempered criticisms, on the one hand, and acrimonious and unjust criticisms, on the other hand” (884) The latter, they claim, is responsible for lowering turnout We agree with these authors that there is a “complex linkage between reality and perceptions” (Sigelman and Kugler 2003: 158), and our proposed model builds on this insight To begin, we define negative campaigning simply as statements made about one’s opponent, as opposed to about one’s self Our model of response to negativity then posits four key steps, all of which must take place in order for negative campaigning to induce lower turnout Below we elaborate this model and the empirical expectations it generates Reception First, voters must actually “receive” the negative messages that the candidates are broadcasting, e.g., in their paid advertising This exposure stage is an obvious one, as it is unlikely that voters will be influenced by what they not see or hear (see Zaller 1992) At this stage in the process, we are not concerned about whether a respondent believes that an ad is “negative”—however they might define that term—but whether they recognize when candidates are talking mainly about themselves or their opponents The testable hypothesis is that voters’ perceptions of how much the candidates are criticizing each other will depend on the volume of this criticism (H1) That is, there is a relationship between the actual and perceived levels of negativity in a campaign—a relationship that Sigelman and Kugler (2003) argue is lacking.1 We use new data sources that enable us to test directly whether perceived levels of negativity indeed track actual levels To our knowledge, this has not been done in the negative advertising literature Evaluation Second, and perhaps most importantly, once voters have been exposed to a campaign message, they must decide whether its content is “negative” That is to say, their evaluation of the message must itself be An obvious corollary is that the likelihood of reception will be greater among voters who are more exposed to the campaign In the supplementary materials for this paper, we investigate whether individual-level measures of advertising exposure and political attentiveness mediate the effects we describe below We did not find consistent evidence that any such measure plays an important mediating role, though this may reflect in part the limitations of the available measures negative It might seem that any message featuring one candidate’s criticizing the other would inevitably produce aversion among voters, but this is not necessarily the case We believe that voters’ responses to negative campaigning are multidimensional Voters certainly evaluate the conduct of a campaign in terms of its negativity, but they have other criteria as well One important criterion, we argue, is whether they believe they are learning information about the candidates, including their qualities, experiences, and stances on issues ([authors] 2005) This does not mean that voters diligently seek out such information (see Hibbing and Theiss-Morse 2000); instead, voters are confronted with information when, usually inadvertently, they see or hear communication from a candidate The key is whether they find that information helpful in terms of learning about the candidates Many scholars (Finkel and Geer 1998; Geer 2000; Jamieson, Waldman, and Sherr 2000; West 1993) have argued that political ads contain useful information, such as discussion of the candidates’ issue positions In fact, negative ads may often contain more of such information (Geer 2000) Consequently, voters actually learn valuable information from advertising (Freedman, Franz, and Goldstein 2004; Ridout et al 2004; Zhao and Chaffee 1995) As a result, voters may perceive campaign ads both as negative and as providing useful information Indeed, negativity may actually trigger political learning Negative information may be more salient amidst an otherwise positive world (Lau 1985) It may illuminate the potential costs and benefits of electoral choices (Kahn and Kenney 1999; Lau 1985) It may also produce anxiety in viewers, encouraging them to stop relying on political habit and to reevaluate their beliefs (Marcus, Neuman, and MacKuen 2001) Thus, voters may find negative messages edifying and ultimately helpful in deciding between the candidates If so, then negativity may facilitate participation more than it inhibits it One important contribution of this analysis is that we are able to measure various dimensions of voters’ evaluations of the candidates’ conduct during the campaign, including its negativity and informativeness Our empirical expectations are two First, we expect voters’ evaluations of campaign conduct to be multi-dimensional (H2) That is, various indicators, such as perceptions of whether the candidates are being negative and providing useful information, tap different underlying constructs This should be evident cross-sectionally—e.g., in a factor analysis—and also over time, which implies that different indicators will not trend in the same fashion Second, we expect these indicators to respond differently to changes in advertising tone More precisely, we expect that voters will deem the criticism they see in advertising as “negative” but not necessarily as “uninformative” (H3 & H4).2 Two other factors that could affect how voters evaluate negative messages are the content of the ad and the source of the ad (i.e., the party of the candidate who sponsored it) The supplementary materials for this paper evaluate the role of each factor, focusing on whether issue- or character-based negative appeals have a larger effect and on whether voters’ party identification shapes how they evaluate in- and out-party messages We find little conclusive evidence that, defined thusly, the content and source of the ad have systematic consequences Generalization After exposure and evaluation, the third step in this process is that aversion to negativity must produce a generalized negative attitude about the candidate(s) and/or the campaign.3 This may occur if a voter has witnessed a large enough amount of negative campaigning that he or she evaluates unfavorably However, dissatisfaction with campaigns may also derive from other sources—e.g., frustration with the role of money in campaigns, a lack of enthusiasm about the candidates themselves, or a sense that one’s issue priorities are getting scant attention As a consequence, we expect people who are more averse to campaign negativity to be more dissatisfied with campaigns, but that aversion should only weakly predict dissatisfaction given that dissatisfaction depends on many other factors (H5) Vote Intention The fourth and final step in any relationship between negativity and turnout is the decision not to participate in an election Potential voters must be so unhappy with the tenor of the campaign that this feeling overwhelms factors, such as their sense of civic duty or their habitual behavior (see Abramson and Aldrich 1982) Because many other demographic and attitudinal factors affect turnout (see, e.g., Wolfinger and Rosenstone 1980), We remain agnostic on how attitudes about the candidates are related to attitudes about the campaign more generally It may be that these should be kept distinct, or it may be that they are so strongly interrelated that distinguishing them is unnecessary We employ indicators that refer to the candidates by name and that refer to campaigns more generally we expect that aversion to negativity will not be associated with vote intention (H6) Finally, the ultimate test of our theoretical model is whether there is any relationship between negative advertising—either actual or perceived—and vote intention Because the cognitive process that links these factors is complex, involving reception, evaluation, and generalization, we believe that the relationship between negative advertising and vote intention should be extremely weak or nonexistent (H7) III Research Design and Data Our research design draws on multiple sources of data to evaluate these hypotheses The data derive from three different campaigns: the 2002 California gubernatorial race, and the 1998 California and Illinois gubernatorial races Each set of data has its strengths and weaknesses, but in combination they allow us to pursue a strategy of triangulation in assessing voters’ reaction to negativity in campaigns The first set of data, which we refer to as “Study #1,” was collected during the 2002 California gubernatorial race This race featured relatively unpopular candidates: the incumbent Democrat Gray Davis, who had only a 39 percent favorable job rating in a September 2002 statewide poll, and Republican Bill Simon, who was plagued by questions about his business ethics Davis dominated Simon in advertising volume and focused his message on these ethical questions 41 Our findings about the qualified effect of negative campaigning on evaluations of campaigns call into question not only broad generalizations about the effect of campaign tone on turnout, but also pronouncements about its potential effect on trust in political institutions and interest in the political process Citizens evaluate the tone of campaigns in a more conditional manner than previously thought Further research should more precisely identify the specific attributes of negative campaigning that voters find helpful and those they find objectionable Improving our understanding of campaign communication and the intricate ways in which citizens react to it will help us understand the true relationship between campaign practices, citizen satisfaction, and participation on Election Day 42 Table Models of Support for Negative Campaigning, Satisfaction with Campaigns, and Vote Intention in the 2002 California Gubernatorial Race Support for Criticism Satisfactio n with Candidates Campaigns Better vs 10 Years Ago Vote Intention Political information 0.10* (0.06) -0.52** (0.06) -0.14** (0.03) 0.22** (0.06) Support for criticism 0.33** (0.12) 0.26** (0.06) 0.08 (0.12) Satisfaction with candidates -0.04 (0.13) Campaigns better vs past 0.05 (0.10) 0.15 (0.17) 0.13* (0.05) -0.41** (0.11) 0.25 (0.19) 1.13** (0.20) -0.22** (0.06) 0.06 (0.12) -0.57** (0.21) 0.09 (0.10) -0.11** (0.03) (0.06) -0.19 (0.11) 0.41* (0.22) 0.05 (0.24) 0.33* (0.17) 0.20 (0.38) 0.35 (0.24) 1.10** (0.25) 0.37* (0.17) -0.47 (0.42) 0.14 (0.13) 0.35** (0.13) 0.71** (0.09) -0.06 (0.22) 0.83** (0.18) 0.03 (0.06) -0.17 (0.12) 2.04** (0.71) -2.34** (0.61) -0.17 (0.23) -0.01 (0.26) 0.44* (0.19) 0.58 (0.45) Constant -1.11** 0.47* Pseudo-R2 (0.25) 0.02 (0.26) 0.13 μ1=-.41 (.14) μ1=-1.06 (.14) 0.08 Partisanship Education Female Age Age squared Black Asian Latino Other race -0.50* (0.30) 04 Table entries are logit or ordered probit coefficients, with standard errors in parentheses Dependent variables are coded 1-candidates need to criticize and 0-candidate should not criticize; 1-satsified with candidates and 0-not satisfied; 2-campaigns better, 1-campaigns same, and 0-campaigns worse; and 1-intend to vote, and 0-do not intend to vote **p