They work and always have.
It's just that usually only the GOPe candidate has the money to compete.
Trump now has one anti-Rubio ad up in Florida...does anyone know if he is on the air in OH, IL, MI and MO?
Negative ads do work repeated ovwer and over.
Hard to survive it without pushback ads.
Agreed about the effectiveness of negative ads. Trump is now under an enormous attack from all sides. The “reactive armor” works only up to a point.
To answer your question, I see ads for IL and MO, and so far, I’ve seen a pro-Rubio ad (PAC - not sure which one) and anti-Trump ads from “Club For Growth”*) None from Trump. Granted, the local news makes up most of my TV viewing.
*Club For THEIR OWN Growth, evidently.
A pro-Cruz ad has been running for some time on multiple area talk radio shows. I’ve not had time to listen much, recently.
Note that the pro-Rubio TV ad that I saw looks like a slick ad for a US House race. Utterly forgettable, other than the slickness — “too slick”, if you ask me. And how one might discern the ad, from it’s CONTENT, heavily featuring video of Rubio, from one that came straight out of the Rubio campaign, I don’t know.
I speculated on another thread that Trump needs to spend $100 million a month on ads, now. This article makes me believe it all the more. In addition, EVERY radio or TV news report (MSM) that I’ve heard in the last few weeks has been anti-Trump biased, with some taking a blatant “class warfare” / envy-of-wealth approach.
My guess is that the Establishment figures that if the anti-politician vs. Establishment meme continues to build, Trump has a real shot against Hillary, even if most of the GOPe supports Hillary. (Note that I actually take Cruz and Kasich at their word that they would support Trump if he gets the nomination. Rubio... I have my doubts.)
OTOH, I’d guess that these Establishment types figure that if Cruz gets the nomination, they plus Hillary / the Dems CAN beat him, as Cruz’ long political life, despite his “gadfly” status, defuses much of the “anti-politician” support that Trump can generate. But, more likely, they want to flip the nomination to one of their own, and are using Cruz to get there.