We have all seen a plot political ads lately. But in the battleground states, it’s a tsunami. Jack Levis is an independent voter in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, which makes him one of the most desirable voters on the planet: “Emails, texts, phone calls, it’s in my feed news, it’s in social networks. In the last two days, I counted, I had 30 spam emails in there, all about the elections,” he said. “It’s incredible.”

Not to mention television and radio advertisements. “Come on, they’re everywhere!” he laughed. “Are you kidding me? Announcement after announcement after announcement!”

Erica Franklin Fowler, co-director of Wesleyan Media Projectwho monitors campaign advertising, and co-author of “Political advertising in the United States”, says she really enjoys watching political ads. But, she adds, “I will first apologize to everyone in the battleground states, because I feel their pain.”

Asked if political ads actually convince anyone, Fowler replied: “Political advertising doesn’t have the kind of massive influence that citizens sometimes think.” Political advertising only really matters at the margins. That’s not to say that margin doesn’t matter. , right? The margin in this competitive election cycle will be the difference between making it to the White House or not.

And what about negative messages versus positive messages? “There’s no doubt that negativity is more memorable,” she said. “It’s more moving.”

We may hate these offensive ads, but Fowler says positive ads don’t say much. “Citizens hate negativity,” Fowler said. “Negative ads tend to be more policy-based, more issue-based, and those details are actually very important to citizens who otherwise don’t pay much attention to politics.”

In the past, we all saw the same ads. In 1964, Lyndon Johnson’s “Daisy” ad suggested that his opponent, Barry Goldwater, would launch a nuclear war; and in 1988, George W. Bush’s infamous “Willie Horton” ad made his opponent, Michael Dukakis, appear dangerously soft on crime.

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