Name-calling in politics grabs headlines, but voters don't like it – and it could backfire in the 2022 midterm elections | News & Features

There are a few factors that help explain why political campaigns and attacks on opponents have become more toxic in recent years.

First off, voters are more emotional and angrier than ever before. This emotion about politics has been linked to the normalcy of anger in our day-to-day lives and increased political competition – for example, close presidential elections.

Democrats and Republicans in the U.S. are also interacting less and less. This social polarization comes as political identity is more important to voters than ever before. Being a Democrat or a Republican is a core part of who the voter is and shapes both their political decisions – like whom they vote for – as well as their nonpolitical ones, like whom they hang out with.

Given these factors, conversations about politics are increasingly happening among people who already agree on political issues.

Politicians like former President Donald Trump and others seem to be leveraging the fact that they are preaching to the choir, so to speak, and are using more and more polarized language to attack the other side.

Whether language is polarized or not is a subjective question, but my research and the work of others has focused on how negative a political message is and how extreme the message is.

There is some evidence that voters may be getting tired of negative political communications flooding their screens.

Using data from the 2016 U.S. presidential election, my collaborators and I found that political ad messages that are more polarized hurt candidates in the polls and lead voters to talk less about the candidate.

Specifically, we find that voters prefer more centrist and more consistent messaging in political ads, at least in the contexts of recent presidential elections. This research used text analysis methods, which allowed us to score each ad for how polarized the messaging was as well as how consistent the messaging was for the candidate.

Polarized messages particularly hurt a candidate’s election chances if they are off-brand for the candidate – that is, for politicians who are typically moderate, and then try to go extreme.

There’s a lot at stake in the upcoming midterm elections in November 2022, as every House seat and about one-third of the Senate seats are up for grabs. A record-setting US$8.9 billion in political ad spending is expected for this midterm election season.

If the dominant tone of this messaging is toxic, political campaigns run the risk of disengaging more and more voters.

My research shows that there are emerging consequences of polarized communications that can hurt candidates in the polls. These insights may encourage political campaigns to test different ad strategies this midterm, perhaps curbing the negativity.

This article is republished from The Conversation, an independent nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. It was written by: Beth L. Fossen, Indiana University. The Conversation has a variety of fascinating free newsletters.

Beth L. Fossen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.