Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2020

Publication Title

Virginia Social Science Journal

Volume

54

Pages

30-39

Abstract

The truel, or three way duel, has distinct properties from duels: the weakest contestant often has a very good chance to win. This paper explores application of the logic of truels to election campaigns involving negative advertising. We show that negative campaigning that pits the leading candidates against each other can create circumstances in which the third (or worse) place candidate wins in one or more of the Nash equilibria of the game. We then study whether the simulated existence of an opportunity for Nash equilibrium victory by third place candidates predicts such outcomes in U.S. state-wide elections.

Comments

© 2020 Jesse Richman

"Access to the Virginia Social Science Journal is granted under creative commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. You may share this non-modified material for non-commercial purposes, but you must give appropriate attribution. Contact the author of this work for other uses."

ORCID

0000-0002-5420-0521 (Richman)

Original Publication Citation

Richman, J. T. (2020). Victory by the weakest: Effects of negative advertising in N>2 candidate campaigns. Virginia Social Science Journal, 54, 30-39

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