When Elizabeth Dole addressed her supporters after winning the Republican primary for U.S. Senate, she challenged her Democratic opponent to refrain from newspaper, radio and television advertising. In her address, she said she wanted to make "North Carolina's Senate race one that sets a standard for the nation."
The Senate race between Dole and Democratic opponent Erskine Bowles has set a different standard for the nation, however, as it has become the most expensive advertising campaign in the country this election season. Dole and Bowles have raised a combined $19 million and have spent a combined $17 million, according to federal reports filed Tuesday. Bowles has loaned his campaign over $2 million, while Dole has not loaned any money to her campaign.
Expensive campaigns are not new to North Carolina.
"North Carolina has traditionally been one of the highest-spending states in respect to Senate races," Duke political science professor David Paletz said. "The [Jesse] Helms-[Jim] Hunt race in 1984 set a record for spending the most money ever in a campaign." Together, Helms and Hunt spent $25 million.
Dole said she hoped Bowles would forfeit spending money on advertisements, instead focusing funds toward debates about the issues that distinguish them--a proposal Bowles rejected. The campaigns faced off Monday at Meredith College and will meet again Saturday at East Carolina University. The candidates had previously agreed to a debate the same day at Guilford College, but it was cancelled earlier this week.
The campaigns have turned to negative advertising--a type of campaigning that Ted Arrington, political science professor at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, said is very effective.
"They are especially useful in helping voters to form a negative impressive of a candidate they don't know well," Arrington wrote in an e-mail. "Thus negative ads will be of less use to Bowles than to Dole because she is already well known, and he is not."
Negative advertising has become common in campaigns, experts said, but this advertising campaign has remained relatively benign.
"The level of personal attack, at least so far, is quite low," Duke political science department chair Michael Munger wrote in an e-mail. "Voters don't like negative campaigns; candidates say they won't use them, but it nearly always happens."
Negative advertising campaigns tend to be more effective for the candidate that is initially behind in the polls, in this case Bowles, Munger added.
"I am not sure that Bowles has any other choice; he is pretty far behind, and Dole is running as if she is an incumbent," he said.
The advertisements have been primarily issue-based. One Dole television spot focuses on the textile industry. It questions a political advertisement from Bowles, in which he claims he will not lose textile jobs to Mexico and China. Dole suggests that the textile company run by his wife, Crandall, is laying off North Carolinians and hiring workers abroad. In response to this advertisement, Bowles has run a spot in which he urges Dole to "stop trying to trick folks," claiming his wife's company employs only 30 people from China.
While negative advertising campaigns try to portray the opponent in an unfavorable light, many voters are skeptical of the ads and do not trust them fully.
"Some ads are obviously unbelievable, but most have a germ of truth, even though it may be twisted. People tend to believe the ads of candidates they support," Paletz said.
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