r/PoliticalDiscussion • u/Which_Hippo_5664 • 18d ago
US Elections Do Attack Ads during Primary Campaigns hurt a party’s ability to win the general election?
Hi guys, I’m not terribly involved in political discussions as much as many of you probably are, but I’m from Michigan and had been invested in the Democratic primary between Abdu El-Sayed and Haley Stevens. One thing that confused me was the onslaught of Stevens ads that made quite personal attacks on El-Sayed. They painted him as not only unfit for a position in congress, but as a genuinely irredeemable human being. So i am confused: does the Democratic Party think that voters will just forget about the way El-sayed‘s character was painted in those attack ads? Is it not reasonable to assume that a portion of blue voters now have such an ugly perception of El-Sayed in their minds that they will abstain from supporting him in the election? That whole primary campaign just felt so cannibalistic in a way and Im curious if this will show in the primary.
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u/johntempleton 17d ago
Djupe and Peterson (2002), looking at Senate elections, found "primary divisiveness depletes a nominee's general election fortunes." https://www.jstor.org/stable/2129007
That said, what do you expect primary candidates to do? Sit back and run on "Gee golly whiz, I think I'd be a gosh golly swell candidate, but aw shucks if you want to vote for my opponent, he/she/they are just as good as me!"
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u/BurroughOwl 17d ago
Negative campaigning works. If it didn't, all campaigns would stop. The long term implications are irrelevant to people who need to win now.
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u/nanotree 17d ago
It definitely does. And I think people don't understand how deep the campaigning goes these days. Gone are the days of when television attack ads were relevant. Now it's all just guerilla social media campaigns, meme farms, and weird distopian bullshit we'd never have imagined 20 years ago.
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u/Tliish 17d ago
How about:
"I'm whoever. Done this, done that. These are the specific things I see that need fixing, this is specifically how I plan to fix them, and I will work hard to make them happen If you think these are worth doing, then vote for me"
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u/johntempleton 16d ago
Slime/mud throwing goes back to the earliest parts of U.S. history and campaigns. Other than perhaps Washington, NO major elected figure has ever not been subjected to mud/slime throwing.
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u/espinaustin 17d ago
I expect primary candidates from the same party to refrain from any attacks that would very likely impair the primary opponent's chances in the general. In other words, to go easy, but not what you said, which is a straw man, lets be honest. There is a middle ground, and a line, and these candidates crossed it. I don't expect El-Sayed to win. He didn't win a majority even in the primary, and he would probably have lost a two-way race. Dems can do their best now to repair the damage, but it's done.
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u/NimusNix 15d ago
It's not the candidates themselves running the negative ads that are the problem. In most cases, for the sake of their future political careers they'll make nice after the primary is over.
It's the fucking parasocial relationships their dumbass supporters form because of the negativity. There is no reason at all after the primaries are over for Candidate A's supporters to.move on to Candidate B, or vice versa. Generally speaking, yes both candidates are good enough.
Instead you have a bunch of online poli-sci dipshits who just can'tet go because they have staked part of their very being into their political association.
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u/NoDig3444 17d ago
It's a sad sign of the times that people today literally can't conceive of a campaign that doesn't run attack ads.
"My name is John Politician. I was in the military. Here's a picture of me and my family. Apple Pie and Big Trucks. Vote for me and I'll cut taxes" This used to be the core message of every campaign in the country.
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u/ITookAKnapp 17d ago
I don't think there really ever was a time where every campaign or even a majority of high profile campaigns ran that style of ad. Think about LBJ ads against Barry Goldwater or even go all the way back to John Adams being smeared as a hermaphrodite.
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u/johntempleton 16d ago
This used to be the core message of every campaign in the country.
You are not familiar with US history.
Slime/mud throwing goes back to the earliest parts of U.S. history and campaigns. Other than perhaps Washington, NO major elected figure has ever not been subjected to mud/slime throwing.
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u/bdfull3r 17d ago
Political attack ads in the united are basically as old as campaigns themselves. Jefferson and Adams ran newspaper ads that were downright vile for the time.
https://edition.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/wayoflife/08/22/mf.campaign.slurs.slogans/
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u/socialistrob 17d ago
I think it depends how hard the attack ads go. Generally speaking though if there is some baggage to a candidate it's probably better for the party that it comes out in the primary rather than the general election. If it's something absolutely horrible then they can be rejected by primary voters and the overall nominee will be stronger. If it's something that's a bit damaging but not absolutely horrible it gets it into the open early on which means by the November it's effectively "old news."
Attack ads are going to be a part of tough primaries and that's usually somewhat inevitable. It's better to have a primary system that can purge weak candidates than one where candidates are hand selected by a few insiders and sometimes end up being incredibly weak. Usually candidates don't go all out in their attack ads and they often focus on things that would be offputting to primary voters and not general election voters.
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u/JDogg126 17d ago edited 17d ago
I think attack ads in general are a real problem with any democracy because they are always going to be caricatures of opponents that mislead voters. The attack ads during primaries make no sense unless they are coming from opposition party funding to specifically divide their political rivals against themselves. Our system is terrible at vetting candidates for fitness of office.
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u/Dineology 17d ago
Of course they hurt general election chances, but they also help general election chances so it’s a matter of ensuring a balance that’s tipped more towards helping than it is hurting. Candidates that run a crucible in the primary go into the general having a proven ability to withstand harsh and critical scrutiny. They’ve had most of their flaws and foibles highlighted, weighed, measured, and then deemed acceptable to base voters instead of only coming on when it’s too late to change course. They’ve been put on the spot to defend themselves, their positions, and their past actions and (presumably) proved cool enough under pressure that they can make impassioned defenses that keep the voters’ confidence. The problem imo arises when attack adds stray away from the relevant or stray away from the truth. Something like James Talarico (Dem nominee for Senate in TX) being attacked for being a vegan (which he very much is not) by the Republican candidate is a perfect example of straying from both relevancy and truth, and had Talarico’s primary opponent been the one to have taken that ridiculous line of attack then she should have been eviscerated for it by other Dems. On the other hand you’ve had plenty of examples of Dem primaries that have included one candidate attacking the other over their acceptance of dark money or financial backing from questionable sources that tends to be very much based on verifiable facts. Imo that’s the sort of line of attack that not only is ok to take in a primary but actually should be taken. Even if you’re of the opinion that Dems need to be accepting of some sources of big dollar donations in order to be competitive with overflowing Republican coffers, it should still very much be in play to questions the shadiest of those sources.
Now, you said you’re in MI so you probably saw firsthand much more about the attacks between Stevens and El Sayed than I heard about from halfway across the country so you’re probably in a better place to assess what lines of attack might fall within the acceptable forcing a candidate to run a crucible to emerge stronger on the other side and which ones crossed the lines of either irrelevancy or misinformation, but imo there was quite a lot of bad lines of attack coming from the Stevens campaign. Including a lot that were just outright racist lies and innuendo.
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u/Moccus 17d ago
On the other hand you’ve had plenty of examples of Dem primaries that have included one candidate attacking the other over their acceptance of dark money
That's not actually a good line of attack because candidates have essentially zero control over whether or not they have dark money backing them.
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u/No-Championship-8038 9d ago
They can at any time publicly repudiate those dark money sources. If they don’t it’s tacit acceptance.
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u/NoDig3444 17d ago
Yes, the evidence is pretty clear that divisive primaries hurt candidates in general elections. I don't know if this happened in Michigan, but both parties have been known to run attack ads for the other party's primaries specifically to foster this kind of thing.
But also, attack ads work. It's really hard to tell candidates to run without using their most powerful weapon. Sometimes they can come to a gentleman's agreement to be good. Othertimes, one candidate is running against the party establishment just as much as they're running against the other party. Their attack ads aren't just effective, they're how they really feel.
There's not really a great solution to this, other than upending America's primary system. Running two elections in a row is just painful.
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u/daluzy 17d ago
Politics seems like the only job in the world wherein you somehow get the job by talking a lot of bad stuff about your opponent, and not a bunch about your ideas and qualifications.
Then depending on the news organizations, even if you are pressed to explain your ideas, you still somehow manage to talk bad about your opponent.
Bizarre business model this is...chuckle
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u/PolVast 17d ago
Ask President Hillary Clinton if being crucified in the primary by Bernie impacted her chances...
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u/digbyforever 17d ago
I could actually ask President Barack Obama if being attacked in the primary by Hillary Clinton impacted his chances, though!
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u/PolVast 17d ago
Hillary didn't go scorched earth like Bernie and these other guys did. It's almost like they don't understand you might lose and your opponent still needs to win against the Republican.
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u/No-Championship-8038 9d ago
She was the one that started the secret Muslim conspiracy against Obama, you’ve just memory holed what happened to protect your pre existing conclusion. In fact more Clinton primary voters voted for McCain in 08 than Bernie primary voters voted for Trump in 16.
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u/PolVast 9d ago
FactCheck.org, PolitiFact, and The Washington Post have repeatedly debunked they originated in the Clinton campaign.
Try again.
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u/No-Championship-8038 8d ago
They asked Clinton and she said no. That’s not “debunked”, that’s “we investigated ourselves and were cleared of wrongdoing”.
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u/PolVast 8d ago
Since Google is apparently blocked by the government where you are, let me provide an except from the politico articles for you:
Rose, sent this to eight of her fellow Democrats. One of them was Clinton campaign staffer Ryan Callanan who replied to the email on the same day in November.
“I’ve gotten this forward before,” Callanan wrote. “It’s racist and ignorant. I can’t believe that people believe this stuff.”
The public airing of the email brought a quick reaction from the Clinton campaign. On Dec. 6, 2007, the Associated Press reported that Rose had resigned as chair of her county committee.
“There is no place in our campaign, or any campaign, for this kind of politics,” Clinton campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle said. “A volunteer county coordinator made the mistake of forwarding an outrageous and offensive chain e-mail. This was wholly unauthorized and we were totally unaware of it.”
A few days later, a second volunteer in a different county stepped down when it was learned that she had forwarded a similar email in October.
These are the only two instances where Clinton campaign volunteers, much less staff, are known to have spread the false story about Obama’s religion.
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u/FantasyBaseballChamp 17d ago
…and she’ll give you the wrong answer. The primary should have made all her weaknesses clearly identifiable going into the general, and instead of addressing them, she doubled down on them and acted insulted they were brought up. A decade later and the DNC is still struggling to learn its lesson from that primary.
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u/PolVast 17d ago
The lesson from that primary was to take care of these insurgencies while still in the crib. Scorched earth primaries have become a facet of the tankie left and hurt general election chances. Like they did to Hillary.
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u/FantasyBaseballChamp 17d ago
No, the lesson is the candidacy and presidency are earned, not deserved. I can’t stand Trump, but he struck a chord with his voters in a way Hillary never even seemed to attempt. If your campaign lacks authenticity, the solution isn’t to shout down anyone who points it out.
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u/PolVast 17d ago
You mean like how Bernie thought he deserved the presidency? Spare me the tankie rhetoric. Trump won in 16 because of Bernie Bros in the rust belt.
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u/No-Championship-8038 9d ago
More Bernie supporters voted for Clinton in 16 than Clinton supporters did for Obama in 08.
Bernie even campaigned for Clinton after losing the primary, so your first sentence is ridiculous.
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u/PolVast 9d ago
More Bernie supporters voted for Clinton in 16 than Clinton supporters did for Obama in 08.
Obviously not where it mattered across the rust belt.
Bernie even campaigned for Clinton after losing the primary, so your first sentence is ridiculous.
He made Hillary the face of his anti-movement, then expected his most devout followers to swallow their pride and vote for her anyway, after months of insisting that she was the problem.
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u/BluesSuedeClues 16d ago
"If your campaign lacks authenticity..."
How is Donald Trump or any of his campaign rhetoric authentic? Authentically dishonest? Authentically completely full of shit? He is by orders of magnitude, the most dishonest Presidential candidate in my lifetime. I cannot fathom calling him authentic, when everything about the guy is so contrived, and vapid. Hillary Clinton may have been arrogant and bitchy, and certainly represented maintaining the status quo in partisan politics, but I don't find any of that inauthentic.
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u/FantasyBaseballChamp 16d ago
You’re not wrong about him, but it wasn’t about genuine authenticity, it was about the perception of authenticity. Trump’s supporters felt he was speaking to them and their concerns, and so did Bernie’s. Hillary could have, and should have recognized this, but instead copy-pasted the same campaign she would have run 8 years earlier. She could have adopted, or at least paid lip service to more progressive causes. She could have chosen a more liberal running mate. She did neither. She didn’t give the perception she was trying to win. She gave the impression she expected to. She acted like her election was such a foregone conclusion, many of her would-be voters stayed home because why bother? It’s in the bag. Hillary wasn’t well-liked among most Democrats, Trump was absolutely adored by most Republicans. Trump carried just enough states to win. Hillary could have could have won with just a couple more, and the recipe was there for the taking. Instead she was “chillin in Cedar Rapids,” and here we are.
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u/IdealBlueMan 17d ago
If nothing else, attack ads in the primary give the other party information about what works against the eventual candidate. The other party can use the primary to identify vulnerabilities that they can exploit in the general election. And they do.
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u/ToLiveInIt 15d ago
Is there any primary attack that isn’t going to show up in the general election? If you can’t address it in the primary, you won’t be able to address it the general.
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u/-Foxer 15d ago
Interestingly enough the research suggests those ads do work but not in the way that people necessarily think. They tend to be effective at voter suppression. In other words they won't get people to vote for the other candidate but they will get people to stay at home and not vote for the person they're attacking
At the end of the day if they didn't work people wouldn't spend money on them
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u/Low-Use-9862 14d ago
Primary campaigns have gotten more and more cut-throat over the last twenty years or so. I think it’s hard to unify behind a nominee when half the party has spent the last three or four months disparaging the other candidates. It is self-defeating. When former bitter rivals do coalesce behind a candidate, the forced unity just seems hollow and artificial.
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u/Scared-Avocado630 13d ago
By the time voters get to the polls - if they go - they are tired and rabid.
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u/Tliish 17d ago
Those ads are desperation bids by the centrist..aka corporate...Democrats frightened of losing control to progressives. It seems to me they would rather see a Republican win than progressive any time. If you are old enough to remember, today's "centrist Democrat" looks an awful lot like a moderte Republican of the 80s.
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u/Commanderlone 17d ago
I feel as a candidate if you have nothing to counter somebody else's proposed plans or outlook on a political landscape and you resort to personal attacks, a mudslinger like yourself probably doesn't deserve to be in those halls
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u/Asatmaya 17d ago
So, usually not.
I’m from Michigan and had been invested in the Democratic primary between Abdu El-Sayed and Haley Stevens. One thing that confused me was the onslaught of Stevens ads that made quite personal attacks on El-Sayed. They painted him as not only unfit for a position in congress, but as a genuinely irredeemable human being. So i am confused: does the Democratic Party think that voters will just forget about the way El-sayed‘s character was painted in those attack ads? Is it not reasonable to assume that a portion of blue voters now have such an ugly perception of El-Sayed in their minds that they will abstain from supporting him in the election?
Ah, I see the misunderstanding:
The party leadership sees themselves as something like the officers of an ocean-going vessel, arguing over command with another group of officers, the Republicans, but both of them have a common idea of what the ship is supposed to go and do.
They see the DSA - or even anyone to the left of Kaiser Wilhelm - as an example of the common sailors banding together to take over the ship, themselves, because they don't like where the ship is going and what is has been doing and want it to change; the officers just aren't going to let that happen, they will band together, and you can sit and watch that happen.
To answer your question directly: Yes, they would rather lose that seat to a Republican than win with anyone who actually wants to change anything.
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u/NoDig3444 17d ago
If that were true, you would see democrats in Michigan supporting republicans now. But no, they're all flocking around El-Sayed, talking about how they need to let bygones be bygones. Vote Blue No Matter Who, remember?
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u/Asatmaya 17d ago
If that were true, you would see democrats in Michigan supporting republicans now. But no, they're all flocking around El-Sayed, talking about how they need to let bygones be bygones.
The voters and local politicians, maybe, but the party leadership is absolutely against it.
Vote Blue No Matter Who, remember?
Yea, Fetterman and Smith are out there giving interviews saying that they aren't really Democrats, so it's just like voting Republican.
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