Wednesday, October 28, 2009

HORSERACE

Campaigning Lessons From Ken Cuccinelli

Ken Cuccinelli is the Republican running for Attorney General in Virginia, and he's up comfortably in most polls. He sent out a fascinating e-mail to supporters, illustrating that negative advertising doesn't always work:

We see daily tracking numbers, so we can see trends.  The tone and tenor of our opponent's ads became sharply negative this past week, so let's look at the comparison of where we were last Sunday to this Sunday, and let's isolate that part of Virginia where we've been being hit the hardest with his negative ads - Southeast Virginia (referred to as the Norfolk media market, though it includes the whole area).

FYI, we poll by media market, so we can react by media market if need be.

My opponent appears to think that there's ground to be gained in SE Va. by trying to tie me to his attacks on Del. Hamilton, so he's pouring it on there.  He has been running negative radio ads since the very beginning of September, with T.V. since the end of September.

No where else in Virginia did they begin advertising before the third week of September.

So, on October 18th, they were up in the polling in the Norfolk media market (the only market in Virginia they were leading in).  And they were up by a lot - 15 points.  The early part of the week they dramatically escalated their negative attacks, departing farther from reality in their attacks than ever before.

So, by the end of the week, how did that work out for them?

Incredibly, we saw the single biggest one week swing in ANY media market anywhere - 25 points!  By Sunday the 25th, we were up by 10 in the Norfolk media market.  We now lead in every single media market.

How does this happen?  Well, there are two explanations in my humble opinion.

First, I already mentioned the extraordinary tone of their negative ads.  Ads that just can't stand up to scrutiny.

Second, is a factor I haven't mentioned yet, and that is name identification.  Incredibly, after outspending us for the duration of the race, my opponent STILL has not crossed 50% name I.D. (that's as of today!).  He has failed to do the most basic thing in political advertising: introduce yourself to the audience.

It's amazing how frequently people all over Virginia ask me who I am running against.  It is STILL happening, even at the end of October!  Usually I refuse to tell them... I figure, let him spend his own money to introduce himself.

His very low name I.D. is particularly important in the context of negative attack ads because of a concept called "carrying a negative."  A candidate has to have sufficient stature of their own with the electorate to "carry a negative" attack.  Part of the reason his negative attacks are not working is that he has not adequately introduced himself to the electorate to capture any benefit from attacking me.

It also doesn't help my opponent that Creigh Deeds - you remember him? - ran 6 weeks of unrelenting negative ads against Bob McDonnell, so folks are fed up with it even more than they would otherwise be.

The result is that all his negative advertising did virtually nothing to change his name identification in the Norfolk media market, and people actually reacted by moving our way on the ballot.

Moral of the story?  Several.  First, there's a very real danger to unmitigated negative campaigning.  Second, a candidate needs to have already established his own image in the public's mind before going negative on the other side.  You have to be known to be "for" some position(s) before you can effectively attack your opponent.

Cuccinelli's opponent has a cash on hand advantage, so he's looking for some help in the final couple of days.

By the way, I hear from more than a few Republicans that Bob McDonnell has run an excellent campaign and they expect big things from Cuccinelli's grassroots-based get-out-the-votes organization. That leaves Lieutenant Governor Bill Bolling, running for reelection, as the odd man out in a way. I have yet to encounter a Republican who thinks Bolling will lose, but few would be surprised if he ran a few points behind the others. Part of the problem is that while the governor's race gets a lot of attention and the attorney general race always focuses on dramatic law-and-order issues, it's tough for the lieutenant governor's race to get much attention.

10/28 09:28 AMShare