Party-Defiance Ads

Abstract

In the United States, spending on political campaigns has surged dramatically. This paper introduces and examines “party-defiance ads,” a novel and increasingly common type of political advertisement in which candidates criticize their own party and take a position typically associated with the opposing party. Given the importance of party loyalty, defiance ads appear counterintuitive and risky. Why would candidates air ads in which they criticize their party? Across eight main studies and eight supplemental studies (N =  11,473), including an analysis of voting outcomes in recent elections, we investigate how consumers react to the use of defiance ads. We find that though defiance ads can be risky and trigger backlash, they have the potential to provide benefits to candidates. We identify when and why consumers support, tolerate, and penalize defiance ads in the context of both general elections and primaries. Our findings examine a previously undocumented advertising strategy, contribute to debates about affective polarization by showing that consumers can occasionally set partisan loyalty aside in favor of strategic considerations like electability, introduce electability as an important construct for research on consumer behavior, and provide practical insights for managers interested in using defiance ads.