Attacking your opponent

Negative campaigning is when politicians attack their opponents instead of focusing on their own policies. Politicians criticise either the substance of their opponents' positions or the opponents themselves. But does this strategy work in the US?

Us versus them

Alessandro Nai, Senior University Lecturer of Political Communication, researches the effects of negative campaigning. ‘Negative campaigning originated in the United States, where only two major parties compete against each other. In a negative campaign, you create an ‘us versus them’ dynamic by portraying the other side in a bad light. By dragging the other side down, you increase your own chances of success.’

Gijs Schumacher, Director of the Hot Politics Lab, also sees that negative campaigns play a significant role during US elections. He explains why they can be successful: ‘On social media, negatively worded tweets or posts have a greater reach. Politicians notice that messages with negative emotions like fear, anger or disgust are shared more often and get more likes.’

Comrade Kamala

Nai notes that the current US election campaigns are no exception. ‘When Biden was still a candidate, he painted Trump as a threat to democracy. This didn’t really resonate, partly due to Biden’s weak media appearances. Kamala Harris, on the other hand, has been more successful with a different strategy: portraying Trump as a weird man. Social media is full of jokes about Trump’s behaviour.’

Donald Trump uses two types of negative campaigns. ‘One approach is the political attack, where Trump labels Harris as far-left. He jokingly calls her ‘Comrade Kamala’ to link her to communism. Another method is mispronouncing Kamala Harris’s name, a tactic Trump uses to belittle his political opponent.’

Opposition parties are always more negative

‘The difference between Harris and Trump also lies in their political positions’, Schumacher adds. In recent years, Democrat Joe Biden has been in power, which makes Trump, as a Republican, the opposition candidate in this election. ‘Opposition candidates always use a more negative tone than politicians from the incumbent government. Trump criticises what Biden has done over the past four years, while Harris defends these policies. She uses positive emotions: she’s cheerful and smiles a lot.’

Positivity is valued

Kamala Harris seems to have a good sense of what voters actually want to see, according to new research by Gijs Schumacher and others. The researchers showed people from the US, the Netherlands, Poland and Greece posters of various politicians and asked which candidate they would vote for. The candidates' smiles, frowning eyebrows and slogans had been altered in the posters. The results showed that voters prefer to vote for a positive politician. ‘When you compare this outcome with the negative campaigns in US elections, there seems to be a mismatch between what politicians tell us and what voters want to hear.’

Negative spiral in politics

So why do presidential candidates keep running negative campaigns? Alessandro Nai explains that politicians are afraid of being attacked themselves. ‘If you don’t respond, you’ll come across as weak, which is bad for your political career.’

‘This is a dangerous development because the more voters are exposed to negativity, the less politically engaged they become. If all politicians seem bad, why would you vote?’

Other research shows there are more worrying consequences. ‘Political attacks lead to greater division in society. Groups no longer just disagree but begin to hate each other due to inflammatory campaigns. This can incite voters to physical confrontations’, says Nai.

Fear activates

The use of negative emotions by politicians can also have positive effects, Schumacher points out. ‘Fear motivates people to actively seek more information. This can be a positive effect in the case of a serious threat, but dangerous when the problem is not as bad as the politician makes it out to be.’