Harris-Walz and Negative Voting

May 1, 2025

Gregory Martinez

Introduction

An interesting social consequence of partisanship in the modern United States has been a rise in what has been described as “negative voting”, a phenomenon that in short, describes the sentiment of a voter’s opinion more accurately being against a certain candidate than for one. It is increasingly common to see Democrats that are only Democrats because they hate Republicans, Republicans that are only Republicans because they hate Democrats, or people completely disinterested in discourse other than hating the other side. Beyond mere ideological differences, the intensely personal feel of modern politics has allowed for the infiltration of the moral imperative, which causes these negative, “anti-” attitudes to have real effects on electoral choice and electoral endorsement. Diego Garzia notes that negative voting, which he defines as “an electoral choice more strongly driven by negative attitudes toward opposed parties and candidates than by positive attitudes toward one’s preferred party and candidate”, constituted one third of the votes in the 2020 presidential election. This practice is consistent with the noticeable direction political discourse has taken within the last decade or so, reducing electoral politics to a matter of “picking one’s poison”. Widespread discontent with the government and greater calls for accountability have led many to conclude that both sides have their issues, and both are more than worthy of critique. Four years removed from the 2020 election that resulted in a boom of discussion on negativity within the electorate, it comes as no surprise that candidates took notice in the 2024 election.

The Harris-Walz presidential campaign was one of the most distinctive in recent memory, particularly due to its lasting just over 90 days from the official Democratic nomination to Election Day. Unique circumstances necessitated a unique and calculated strategy, and this article will demonstrate how Harris-Walz exploited bipartisan trends towards negative voting with hopes of garnering support across the national voter base. This article will analyze the messaging and the framing of the discourse that has been engaged to provide insight into how said exploitation took place, followed by discussion on the potential consequences for future campaigns, and the continued development of political discourse in the United States.

Defining Negative Voting

In any discussion of negative voting, the psychological roots of the phenomenon, coined as “political sectarianism” by Eli J. Finkel, are of particular note. It is important to highlight that hatred of the other party is not a new phenomenon, and voting trends following this is hardly revolutionary either. Michael M. Gant notes that “in 1980 almost half of Ronald Reagan’s electoral support came from people who were voting against Jimmy Carter than for Reagan per se”, and that similar analyses were made about the elections of 1948, 1952, and 1968. But Finkel, and Garzia by extension, maintain that the current conception of sectarianism is indeed a unique product of the modern political climate. For one, the distaste has only intensified, as studies show that:

on a “feeling thermometer” scale ranging from cold (0°) to neutral (50°) to warm (100°), affect toward copartisans has consistently hovered in the 70° to 75° range. By contrast, affect toward opposing partisans has plummeted from 48° in the 1970s to 20° [in 2022].

And apart from this, Finkel notes that the hostility no longer stems from policy disagreements, with the relationship between policy preference and party identification becoming so warped that the latter often causes shifts in the former. He cites a study in which Republicans displayed a “liberal attitude shift” after being shown a video of Donald Trump voicing a policy position traditionally attributed to the left, and hypothesizes that Democrats would show similar behaviors with respect to their leaders. Because politics has become so deeply intertwined with affection for individuals, for many citizens liking a party necessitates liking the people that represent it, and vice versa. Combining this with the idea that dislike of the opposition is a stronger indicator than affect towards one’s own, the conceptualization of voting against a person, rather than a party or ideology, begins to take shape. Dislike of people (or peoples) leads to dislike of a party, and dislike of a party shapes ideology.

Having established root causes, it is important to be clear about what is meant by negative voting, more specifically by distinguishing it from standard “positive” voting. Garzia’s work demonstrates that the distinguishing mark of the negative voter versus the positive is not their dislike of the out-party/candidate, but rather the degree of their in-party/candidate liking. Both the negative and the positive voter have been equally affected by the aforementioned increase in hostility towards out-party candidates, but the negative voter is “uniquely characterized by lack of affect for their supported party/candidate”. The individual not only holds contempt for opposition at the highest degrees in decades, but is also not particularly convinced by the candidates that their own party puts forward. The culture of person-centered politics may have begun with voters prioritizing their political opinions on the candidate or leader in question, but with the rise of negativity and discontentedness it has morphed into a culture of being so disgusted by the out-party that one votes for and supports the in-party regardless of who the in-party actually deems its representative. This is irrespective of the in-party candidate’s policies, personalities, or any other metric used to determine support of the individual: if the opponent’s candidate is bad enough, then the negative voter is willing to use his civic right to support this in-candidate they ultimately have no love for, bringing forth the aforementioned “pick-your-poison” rationale behind much of current discourse.

Exploiting Negativity

Given this profound change in voter trends, it was only a matter of time before a candidate incorporated this into electoral analysis. The Harris-Walz campaign entered a race unlike any other in recent memory, not only because of the short timeframe, but also because of the attitudes towards the two leading political figures at the time: incumbent president Joe Biden and Republican nominee Donald Trump. Biden’s approval ratings peaked at 41% in 2024 and 42% in 2023 (the average since 1938 has been 52%), reflecting four years of controversy over the COVID-19 pandemic and responses to the conflict in Ukraine. Polls over that same timeframe showed that around 40% of Americans held unfavorable opinions about Trump. Even without the statistics, one could tell the mood around both candidates approaching Election Day was generally negative, with Biden’s age and Trump’s impending felony charges chief among the electorate’s concerns. Biden formally withdrawing from the race on July 21, 2024 was somewhat an acknowledgement of the struggles the general public had in considering his reelection, but the nomination of sitting Vice President Kamala Harris meant that her campaign carried the weight of the previous administration. Campaign analysis from the New York Times one month into her election bid emphasized the importance of Harris “establish[ing] her own political identity”, and election coverage throughout the next few months frequently made use of the idea of separating herself from Biden. Even more essential to controlling social perception was the separation from Donald Trump, who beyond just being a political opponent, was an ethical one to many voters. The controversy surrounding Trump’s personal affairs and viewpoints was deeper than mere politics, and much of the concern surrounding his potential presidency was centered not only around policy, but the man behind it.

The aforementioned concept of person-centered politics is not new, and this idea that a candidate’s unpopularity stemmed from a perception of character is not groundbreaking, only arguably in ubiquity. The novelty in Harris-Walz’s approach in light of these respective perceptions lies in their avoidance of what has been dubbed “negative campaigning”, in favor of a more nuanced approach. Negative campaigning, defined as “concentrat[ion] on the perceived weaknesses of their opponent’s policy proposals, prior policy failures, and/or personal peccadilloes” is as old as politics itself, and is deeply ingrained in electoral culture that it would be foolish to argue that it was completely absent from the Harris-Walz campaign. Nonetheless, key differences between Harris-Walz and the existing precedent are found through turning to historic accounts.

The infamous “Tank Ride” advertisement released by George H. W. Bush in his 1988 bid for presidency against then-Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis is cited as a key reason why the sitting vice-president ultimately won in a landslide. Coming off a tough Reagan administration, Bush sought to build on the reputation the Republican party had built for prioritizing American interests during the last eight years. Through a series of advertisements, he sought to portray the Democrat Dukakis as an ineffective, elite liberal whose focus on social reform was too weak a stance. “Tank Ride” was a brutal, information-based attack on Dukakis’ opposition to various forms of US defense policy, essentially painting him as a risk to national security. This formula is common in negative, targeted advertisements such as George W. Bush’s “$2.2 Trillion” in 2000, where his targeting of Al Gore’s excessive spending plan weakened his opponent’s economic platform, and Donald Trump’s “The Joe Biden They Are Hiding From You” in 2020, where he compiled various quotes from the former vice-president in an effort to denigrate his perception among the African-American community.

Specific information is the backbone of negative campaigning, as the idea is to “teach” voters that the targeted candidate is a bad politician, or just a bad person. But Harris-Walz advertisements seemed to lack this informational quality, notably in the “Enemy Within”, which despite a general notion that Trump was a threat to democracy that should be avoided, lacked specific criticisms about policy or person. There seems to be an assumption that the viewer is already aware of the controversy, or already has some element of fear, and the advertisement is not designed to teach this but rather reinforce it and remind the audience to vote so that this fear does not become reality. It seems like this would resonate with negative voters, whose established dislike of Trump means that their only requirement for support is status as an alternative. Of course the Harris-Walz campaign did not completely divorce themselves from specificity, with more information-based attacks taking place in advertisements like “Blocked” or “The Time is Now”, but these were not inherently critical advertisements or advertisements focused on criticism. They utilized the mentioned facts about Trump as contrast with her own stances and policies. It is not a coincidence that again, this nuanced difference would bode well with the negative voter, because regardless of quality or position, all Harris needs for support from this negative voter is the idea that she is not what they are voting against. This is exemplified in one of the Harris-Walz campaign’s most enduring catchphrases, “We’re not going back”. Sources note that the words, which stemmed from a hastily written first speech as presumptive nominee at Democratic campaign headquarters in Wilmington, Delaware, “wasn’t designed to be a catchphrase” and “was just a good turn of phrase”. But after raucous applause ensued, and the repetition at another event the following day in Milwaukee induced a similar reaction, it started working into the campaign and became a staple of speeches made up until Election Day. Evidence showed that the electorate was perfectly fine with framing Harris’ presidency not as her own, but as an avoidance of Trump’s. Harris-Walz stuck with this thread throughout the campaign, focusing not so much on the specifics of their platform, but on the dangers of the opponent, a move that seemed less coincidental with each passing example.

Discussion

Given the exploitation of negative voters as a part of the Harris-Walz strategy, the discussion shifts to what this means for future presidential campaigns. As previously mentioned, Harris-Walz faced incredibly unique circumstances and challenges that likely led them to rely on negative voters in the manner they did, but it also remains that the negative voting trend shows no signs of slowing down. How will future aspiring politicians take this into account? It is of note that ultimately, Kamala Harris did not win the 2024 presidential election. Discourse as to why that was the case remains varied and needs not be addressed for the purpose of this argument, but seeing the appeal that Harris garnered in such a short amount of time, it is hard to say that her gaining any portion of the negative vote that she did was a detriment to her chances. It does, then, make sense that future campaigns would take the negative vote into account. But is it possible to embrace and even rely on it as Harris did and still win? Under the 2020 count of negative voters comprising one-third of the votes, it is unlikely that a candidate would win solely on their support. But with social media echo chambers only intensifying the political sectarianism established as the root cause behind negative voting, perhaps negative voters will become a demographic too large to ignore within the next few election cycles. And if so, what effect does that have on the electorate?

The current work on negative voting, albeit limited, does not suggest any sort of psychological impact on the voter, and it is hard to empirically state that a negative voter would feel better or worse about their choice than a positive one. However, stories like those of the undecided voter interviewed by BBC who described his ultimate vote for Harris as “probably not the proudest vote I’ve ever cast” are something to keep an eye out for, because a sentiment of regret seemed to be present in at least some subsection of reluctant negative voters. A 2013 study of civic engagement among political skeptics in Providence, Rhode Island revealed pertinent findings. Despite an individual’s activism in what would be considered political activities such as city government and active citizenry, they verbally disavowed and separated themselves from what they called “politics”, even characterizing themselves as completely apolitical. The paper argued that American disconnect and skepticism with politics is less about values and actual, ideological engagement, but rather disconnect with the legislative processes they deem ineffective. So while having the perspectives and mental frameworks that lead to negative voting may not affect actual attitudes and care towards issues or policies, it can certainly lead to a lack of affect towards institutions and government alike, creating the ultimate cynic. In this case where the individual has no faith in government or places no value in it, are we fulfilling the spirit of true representative democracy? Would seeing candidates purely as avenues towards avoiding total chaos be a reflection of what democracy should be? All these questions have circled discussions about American cynicism for some time now, but increased negative voting, especially when candidates are actively working to take advantage of it, is unlikely to help paint a rosier picture of elections in the average citizen’s eyes.

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