320 Chapter 9 | ElectionsDo Campaign Ads Work? One critical question about campaign advertising is
whether the ads work—whether they shape what people know or influence their voting
decisions or other forms of participation. Some observers have complained that
campaign ads (particularly negative ads) depress voter turnout and reinforce citizens’
negative perceptions of government.^37 Many of these arguments focus on attack ads
or negative campaigning. Ads have portrayed candidates as evil blimps hovering over
Washington, D.C., or even “demon sheep.”^38
Whether positive or negative, and regardless of whether they feature evil blimps
or something else, campaign ads seek to catch voters’ attention, to get them to focus
on a race long enough to consider the candidates and their real messages. Studies of
campaign advertising have shown that most of the time, campaign ads fail at this task.
Most citizens ignore the ads or remain unconvinced of their messages. For example,
during the 2016 presidential nomination campaign Republican Jeb Bush and groups
supporting him spent millions on campaign ads, only to find that citizens simply did
not want to vote for Bush regardless of how many ads his campaign ran. In the general
election, Hillary Clinton lost despite vastly outspending Donald Trump on campaign
ads. And Carly Fiorina, who ran for a California Senate seat using the demon sheep ad,
lost her race.
Insofar as ads matter and Americans pay attention to politics, studies of campaign
advertising suggest that Americans are reasonably thoughtful when assessing
campaign ads. Evidence suggests that campaign advertising has several beneficial
effects. Researchers have found that people who are exposed to campaign ads tend
to be more interested in the campaign and to know more about the candidates.^39
Moreover, many campaign ads highlight real differences between the candidates and
the parties.^40 Nonetheless, average citizens know that they cannot believe everything
they see on television, so campaign advertising, if it does anything at all, captures their
attention without necessarily changing their minds.^41
With regard to negative campaigning, evidence suggests that attack ads often do
not help the candidates who run them.^42 In fact, negative ads run by a candidate’s
campaign can backfire, driving away supporters and depressing turnout. As a result,
candidates often rely on party committees and interest groups to run negative ads.
Then the candidates themselves can run more positive ads (recall Table 9.2) and can try
to disassociate themselves from the negative ads run by others.
In the end, despite all the money and effort poured into campaign advertising,
these messages must be designed to capture the attention of citizens whose interest
in politics is minimal, delivering a message that can be understood without too much
interpretation. In this way, campaign advertising reflects an old political belief, that
most things candidates do in campaigns are wasted efforts that have little impact on
the election. The problem is that candidates don’t know which of their actions will
amount to wasted efforts and which will help them win, so they try everything they can.Campaign Finance
“Campaign finance” refers to money collected for and spent on campaigns and
elections by candidates, political parties, and other organizations and individuals. The
Federal Election Commission is in charge of administering election laws, including
the complex regulations pertaining to how campaigns can spend money. Changes in
campaign finance rules, which were passed as the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act
(BCR A), took effect after the 2002 elections and have been modified by subsequent
Supreme Court decisions, most notably Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission
(2010) and McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission (2014), which we describe later.Federal Election Commission
The government agency that enforces
and regulates election laws; made
up of six presidential appointees,
of whom no more than three can be
members of the same party.In the 2016 presidential race, many of
the ads aired by the Trump campaign
and Republican groups criticized
Hillary Clinton, focusing on what they
deemed to be her corrupt political
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