Negative Campaigning in German State Elections

As part of the DFG-funded project “Negative Campaigning in German Elections: Measurement, Dynamics, and Determinants” (Project No. 441574527), the study examined the determinants of negative campaigning in German state legislative elections. A key focus of the study is on the campaign strategies employed by candidates, particularly the use of negative campaigning—that is, verbal attacks on political opponents. To this end, all candidates from the major parties who participated in the 17 German state elections between 2021 and 2025 were surveyed online or in writing. The surveys cover a broad spectrum of constructs, including demographics, the use of negative campaigning, personality traits, political attitudes and norms, and campaign strategies. The questionnaire is divided into the following content areas: (1) Questions regarding the current candidacy and the candidacy in the previous state legislative election/House of Representatives election: Party/list affiliation; type of candidacy (constituency / state list / constituency and state list); election results; candidacy in the last state legislative election/House of Representatives election/state parliament election; estimated proportion of undecided eligible voters; perceived likelihood of electoral success; (2) Questions regarding resources expended: time spent during the active campaign phase; size of the campaign team; use of campaign consulting services; campaign budget; (3) Questions regarding campaign activities and campaign materials used: use and importance of various campaign activities and materials; (4) Questions regarding the role of the media and perceptions of media coverage during the campaign: Opinions on and perceptions of media coverage of the campaign; use, importance, and engagement with political profiles on social media (Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter); (5) Questions regarding the campaign in general: General perceptions of the content and structure of the campaign; (6) Questions regarding the participant’s own campaign strategy, with a particular focus on the use of negative campaigning: Campaign communication strategies in the participant’s own campaign: advertising, attacks, defense; the party most frequently attacked by the participant; the main focus of the participant’s own attacks; the focus, direction, and incivility of the participant’s own attacks; personalization of the campaign; (7) Questions regarding the use of negative campaigning by political opponents: frequency of attacks by opponents; the party that attacked the participant most frequently; Main topic of opponents’ attacks; focus and incivility of opponents’ attacks; (8) Questions regarding attitudes toward negative campaigning: attitudes toward negative campaigning; opinion on negative campaigning; (9) Questions regarding social, personal, and political profiles, as well as other political and social attitudes: left-right positioning; sympathy scale; affective polarization; Values and personality (HEXACO, D-factor, locus of control); social norms; conjoint experiment on science-related populism. Demography: sex; age (categorized); parents’ citizenship at birth; parents’ ethnic background. The following were additionally coded: year of the state election; federal state; name of the election; candidate identification; serial number; Invitation and participation; invitation; participation mode; information from the state election commissioner; time spent on individual pages of the questionnaire; total time spent; time when the data record was last modified; survey was completed; last page of the questionnaire edited; percentage of missing responses; time the interview began; weighting factors.