The Hazard of Anti-China Rhetoric: an Analysis of Mitt Romney’s “Failing American Workers” Campaign Ad

Campaign advertising can be self-harm. Using data of Romney‟s “Failing American Workers” ad obtained from Wesleyan Media Project, I build three Time-Series-Cross-Sectional models to estimate how the ad using anti-China rhetoric affected Romney‟s voter support in target states. The pooling and random intercepts models show that in general airing the ad increased Romney‟s daily voter support across the states by about 0.8 percent. But the fixed effects model shows that airing the ad within the same state over time decreased Romney‟s daily voter support by about 0.2 percent;and as the ad spending increased, Romney‟s daily voter support decreased. The results indicate that airing anti-China ad can help seek voter support but spending too much on itcanself-hurtthe presidential candidate.