75 national and international experts in US politics evaluated the personality reputation of Trump and Clinton. They evaluated Clinton as average on extraversion, agreeableness, openness, narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism, but high on conscientiousness and emotional stability. Trump was rated very low on agreeableness, conscientiousness and emotional stability, average on openness, and very high on extraversion and the Dark Triad. Results are consistent with previous research based on ratings from psychology scholars. Experts also evaluated their campaign style. Trump campaign was seen as populist, negative, and based on fear appeals. Clinton was also evaluated as high in negativity but using a less populist rhetoric and making an average use of emotional appeals. Perceived campaign style of Trump and ClintonNo unified framework exists for the study of the campaign style of candidates. We focus here on their use of populist rhetoric, negative campaigning, and emotional (fear, feel-good) appeals.First, two elements are associated with "populist" communication: people-centrism and anti-elitism (Mudde, 2004). People-centrist

One of the most obvious trends in Western democracies, during the past decades, has been the decline of citizens' political support (that is, the growth of negative attitudes toward political parties, politicians and democracy). One explanation for this trend is that the number of political scandals has increased. However, the impact of political scandals on political support is not clear. Whereas the dysfunctional theory assumes that political scandals in general have an unfavourable impact on the political system, functional theory claims that political scandals can have positive effects. Using data from an experiment, this article analyses which theory is superior. It finds support for the dysfunctional theory: support for politicians and political parties was significantly eroded after exposure to scandal coverage whereas trust in institutions as well as satisfaction with democracy were not affected. The article concludes that political scandals contribute to the decline of political support.

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In this article we seek to understand whether national parties have an impact on citizens’ EU support by publicly cueing Europe as a risk to or as an opportunity for the economy or identity. In order to answer this question, we have conducted a cross-country survey experiment (covering Austria, the Czech Republic, Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain and Sweden) relying on real-world stimuli from party campaign communication in the run-up to the 2009 European Parliament elections. By introducing this new methodology to cueing research we show substantial evidence for cueing effects even when thoroughly controlling for nuisance variables drawn from EU research as well as country contexts. We find support for the general cueing hypothesis in experimental groups that were exposed to negative economic messages while in two other groups partisanship works as a relevant moderator of the effects of persuasive messages. These findings are explained by distinguishing between consensual and conflicting issues and show in what circumstances campaign messages might reach beyond the particular partisan base.

Which candidates are more likely to go negative, and under which conditions? We analyze self-reported survey data from candidates having run in the 2017 German federal election for the main parties. More specifically, we test a comprehensive set of factors supposed to drive the use of (a) negative campaigning in general, (b) policy attacks, and (c) character attacks. Our results show that for all three versions of negative campaigning the political profile of candidates is most important, followed by personality traits, perceived campaign dynamics, social profile, and available campaign resources. Within these categories, five factors are important across the board: members of the governing parties are less likely to attack, ‘extreme ideology’ of the candidate fuels the use of attack politics, candidates who believe that the media can persuade voters attack more often, disagreeable candidates tend to go negative, and male candidates are more likely to attack than females.