Do Negative Campaign Ads Work?  Do negative campaign ads work?
In the latest University of Texas/Texas Tribune poll, we tested
the effectiveness of two of the earliest "comparative" ads run
in the governor's race to see if they persuaded voters.
Apparently so.  Republicans Kay Bailey Hutchison and Rick Perry
were the first two candidates in the top race on the ballot to
run negative spots. When our poll went into the field at the
beginning of the month, Republican Debra Medina and Democrat
Farouk Shami weren't running any negative commercials, and
Democrat Bill White wasn't running any television spots yet at
all.  The pollsters split registered Republican voters into two
groups and asked each to rank the two gubernatorial candidates,
then watch an ad and then rank them again.  Group A saw Perry's
"Bailout" ad.  Group B saw Hutchison's "Cha-ching" ad.  In both
cases, the commercials influenced voters, drawing their
preference away from the candidate being attacked. But it didn't
work on everyone.  "The Kay su