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Maya is a Junior in Politics and International Affairs from Fairmont, WV and Mark is a Junior in Communication from Baltimore, MD

Introduction

Political corruption remains a staple within the American political culture. Always part of the daily vocabulary of elections, accusations of corruption permeated the 2020 election. In 2017 76% of Americans believed corruption to be widespread throughout the government while only 59% reported the same feelings in 2006 (Clifton, 2017). The Transparency International Corruption Perception Index offers an annual report of the degree of corruption in the world’s countries and territories, scored from highly corrupt (0) to very clean (100). The United States has plateaued between 69 and 80 from 2011 to 2019 and was ranked 23rd out of 180 countries in 2019 (CPI, 2019). Between the developing disdain towards the presence of corruption and the indices of national ranks of corruption, the United States does not hold its once envious status on the global stage, and the minds of Americans are plagued with the corruption narrative even more so in the last two decades. In the chapter that follows, we discuss previous literature regarding corruption in political advertisements and assumptions of voter suppression in previous election cycles and present results of thematic content analysis of political ads ranging in topics from vote-by-mail debate to accusations of Hunter Biden’s corruption.

There are a multitude of working definitions of corruption utilized in political science and in previous research based on standards of public interest, public opinion, and the law. A widely used definition of corruption is the “misuse of entrusted power for private gains” which takes legality and public interest into account (Fisman & Golden, 2017). When an action is illegal and abuses the power of an office, it is corrupt. Mark Warren introduces a more modern definition, stating that “corruption is always a form of duplicitous and harmful exclusion for those who have a claim to inclusion”, hence, corruption must be defined by those conditions: exclusivity and duplicity (Warren, 2004). Therefore, corruption will be defined throughout this chapter as the abuse of public office for private gain, violating conditions of exclusivity and duplicity.

The paper is divided into two sections that examine discrete aspects of the corruption themes portrayed in the 2020. Section 1 examines voter suppression related schemes, while section 2 investigates scandals surrounding the candidate’s persona and their families.

Section 1: Voter Suppression, the USPS, and Voting by Mail

Literature Review

Defining Corruption in Political Advertisements.

Political advertising has become the main way for candidates to communicate with voters over the last several decades, even more so in the unique nature of the 2020 election cycle which has been impacted particularly by COVID-19. This election cycle has brought forth plentiful accusations of corruption, from the United States Postal service scandal, to Vote by Mail fraud, to accusations against President-elect Joe Biden’s son. Both political parties have spun a vicious narrative against one another to influence voters.

Previous literature supports the claim that corruption is not new within political advertisements. Scholars found that across newspaper ads in the 1964 presidential election, similar issues were displayed regarding the opposing candidate, such as education, health, elderly, and corruption (Mullen, 1986). In other countries, such as Taiwan, studies have found that political corruption issues are more visible in corruption propaganda during election times than in other years (Fell, 2006). The high-frequency of corruption advertisements combined with an “electoral cycle bias”, certain media outlets, third party groups, and candidate campaigns try to affect voters when it matters most – prior to presidential elections (Moglie & Turati, 2019). Hence, the media can have an indirect effect on decreasing corruption, however, corruption narratives appear heavily in election years where groups want to frame their story to persuade voters.

The literature does not account for every confounding relationship of exposing corrupt candidates by the free media. Arguably the relationship may deter voters from holding politicians accountable and hence, decreases corruption. Also, media outlets often have their own ideological stance, which can imply bias in the supply of political news affecting the selection of both the topic to be covered and how it is presented and discussed. Such biased outlets try to create a corruption scandal of their own to “expose” through their own advertisements or use preexisting scandals to spin their own narrative in advertisements. Finally, because prior research does not directly explore the narrative of corruption advertisements, we conduct a thematic content analysis on the 2020 political advertisements.

Voter Suppression Narrative: Vote by Mail and the USPS Scandal.

Discourse surrounding voter suppression has been ongoing since before the height of the Civil Rights’ Movement and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which outlawed discriminatory voting practices, especially in southern states (Voting Rights Act, 1965). While voter suppression does not originate with the Civil Rights Movement, the passing of the Voting Rights Act was the first step to eradicating formal barriers to voting, even though informal obstacles remained in order to suppress minority communities from utilizing their right to vote. Other issues regarding voter suppression have surfaced since 1965, including the lack of election resources in states, allocation of poll workers, and restricted access to voter registration (Wang, 2012). Historically, voter suppression has risen when political organizations restrain the participation of certain demographics but cannot, politically or constitutionally, disenfranchise them outright (Keyssar, 2012). The voter suppression narrative has returned in the 2020 election advertisement cycle as millions of Americans were caught at a crossroad of risking infection of COVID-19 by going to the polls or turn to vote-by-mail sometimes associated with mistrust and fraud.

In the recent election cycle, vote-by-mail advertisements have been scarce or simply directed towards audiences that choose to vote by absentee ballot (i.e., military, university students, etc.). Voting by mail is not a new concept to US elections, for the last two federal elections, roughly one of every four Americans cast a mail ballot (Weise & Ekeh, 2020). A recent battleground poll conducted by CBS, it was found that 37% of citizens preferred voting by mail (Salvanto, et al., 2020). With this election cycle’s unique circumstances, such as COVID-19, the influence on voter turnout and vote-by-mail requests increased greatly, making it is even more timely to explore the nature in which political candidates have influenced their supporters to turn to their mailboxes rather than election day voting.

Surrounding the surge of vote by mail campaigns has been claims of election fraud and discreditation, specifically by President Donald Trump, stating that mail ballots would create “the most CORRUPT ELECTION in our Nation’s History!” (Dickinson, 2020). The President spun a very vicious narrative of election fraud through mail ballots, going as far as pushing to defund the United States Postal Service (USPS) to avoid such fraud. In response to harsh criticisms and the threat of losing funding, the US Postal Service launched advertisements of their own to “educate the public on the Postal Service’s role within the mail-in voting process.” (Katz, 2020). The USPS went to great lengths to handle the 8-10% declines in mail delivery times due to COVID-19 and assure the American public that their ballots would be received in time to be counted (Katz, 2020).

Even so, Trump’s reelection campaign continued to release advertisements to request that some mail-in ballots in many key battleground states such as Pennsylvania, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Iowa, Arizona, Maine and Wisconsin (Dickinson, 2020) not be counted. Many advertisements use different language than Trump himself, with no syntax of fraud or corruption through voting by mail, at least for absentee balloting (Dickinson, 2020). The twisted narrative between Trump himself, his campaign, and opponents in pushing Americans to vote, no matter the method is something truly distinctive from other election cycle narratives. Furthermore, the Washington Post reported ads presenting false information dissuading voters from using the USPS to vote by mail. Eventually advertisements were removed from Google and Facebook from groups such as Protect My Vote and FreedomWorks that allied with Donald Trump’s reelection campaign (Stanley-Becker, 2020). The conflicting narratives regarding whether vote by mail ballots are fraudulent or a safe way to vote has brought a unique perspective to the 2020 election cycle which is analyzed in thematic content analysis.

Theories and Methodology

This research sought to observe political advertisements corruption narratives by conducting a thematic content analysis on the corruption advertisements in the 2020 election cycle. The sample of 25 advertisements was organized by date, duration, source, candidate/party mention, and common verbiage and/or themes. We look to discover recurring storylines of corruption in the USPS through vote by mail, as well as narratives regarding voter suppression. From such analysis we asked the research question: Do advertisements present recurring themes of suppressing a citizen’s right to vote by mail?

Results

The results of the thematic content provide interesting results of the “corrupt” narratives with regards to voter suppression and the USPS scandal. As shown in Figure 1, the distribution of advertisements length has a positive skew. The mean average was 54.5 seconds being affected by numerous longer advertisements, with an outlier of 125 seconds. This would seem to suggest the sample largely abides by standard 30 second ad television but more extended messages of likely intended for social media outlets were produced.

Figure 1: Distribution of Ad Duration

The visual of advertisement source is shown below in Table 1, with just under half, 40.91% being from third party ideological groups such as American Crossroads, Future 45, Make American #1, and Reclaim American, primarily conservative sponsors.

Table 1 – Frequency of Advertisement Source

Interestingly, most of the advertisements mentioned President Donald Trump and the Republican party as shown in Table 2, 50% of the advertisements mention them in some capacity, whether it be a positive or negative fashion. While not a political advertisement, Donald Trump’s response to criticism on cutting funding to the USPS on Fox News in September is an important piece in understanding the narrative.

Table 2 – Frequency of Candidate or Party Mention

In Table 3, the content analysis for common verbiage and themes is presented. Keywords and phrases found in the advertisements were sorted into five categories: Voting, USPS, Corruption, Voter Suppression, and Other. Of these categories, corruption and voting are the most frequent, with themes of voter suppression and the USPS scandal.

Table 3 – Common Verbiage and Themes in Advertisements

Discussion

President Trump claimed that ballots were being lost and discarded by the postal service, and the Democratic party is to blame for the “catastrophe” because they did not approve funding for the USPS. Trump’s main argument within this set is that universal mail-in voting is sensitive to fraud and corruption. He reasons that absentee ballots are allowed, but mail-in ballots are not, which is illogical in the sense that the process for both is the same[i]. In his response to claims of destroying the postal service, Trump’s argument of universal mail-in ballots as fraudulent and corrupt violates the definition of corruption we set forth for this study. If anything, universal mail-in ballots are the opposite of this definition: they are not abusing public office for private gain in any way, it is not exclusive, the process includes people who have the right to vote but may not be able to do so given the circumstances due to the year’s circumstances, as some would argue not duplicitous. In an advertisement from AARP Florida from July, statistics of their state’s population show that 93% of Americans trust the voting system, and 65% feel secure in voting by mail. These percentages, while not representative of the entire US population, give an idea of attitudes towards the USPS scandal being false in a key battleground state, at least before the rhetorical and advertising delegitimization campaign.

Further analysis found an interesting theme and concept to which this narrative can be described accurately as the “War on Mail”. In an August advertisement from VoteVets, the organization expressed the importance of the postal service to military forces outside of the US. The troops rely on the USPS for medicine, communication with home, and their absentee ballots. The ad criticizes Trump for defunding the USPS and taking away the troops’ access to home and their right to vote. Other advertisements, such as one from Defunding Democracy, call for an expansion to absentee voting to protect older citizens from COVID-19 and other health risks. Senator Gary Peters (D-MI) also stood up for postal service rights to be protected, criticizing Postmaster General Louis DeJoy’s failure to give the US citizens answers.

            Advertisements from conservative groups and news outlets pushed the responsibility of voter suppression to the democratic party with unfound claims of cheating, fraud, and corruption in mail-in votes. In an advertisement from the GOP (Republican Party) in May, they claimed that Democrats are working to radically change the voting process by removing voter safeguards and increase opportunities for fraud. Vernon Jones (D-GA) spoke at a Trump rally in early November claiming that liberals and the media are “suppressing and depressing” voters through false ballots and false polls. In a series of advertisements tailored to battleground states such as Arizona and Florida, The Lincoln Project put forth a warning to Republicans that they will be caught for intimidating voters and manipulating the election. This sample set of advertisements, regardless of political affiliation, provide support for the claims of corruption will violate the definition set forth and include themes of suppressing citizen’s right to vote by mail through fear tactics such as COVID-19, the War on Mail, and unsolicited ballots.

Section 2: Sideshow Corruption Advertising: Character, Prominence, and Impact

Literature Review

What is an election without corruption? Whether it is a Clinton scandal, Trump’s tax returns (or lack thereof), or Hunter Biden, elections of modern day have provided the average voter with a plethora of corruption content. Media has grown in a key role in discovering and amplifying this corruption as well, seeking to be first with breaking “news.”

Corruption has taken on many meanings historically. Michael Johnston, author of Political Corruption: Readings in Comparative Analysis, claims, “In the 1900s, in the United States, corruption was one of the most frequently employed terms in the political vocabulary” (2017). This “aura” surrounding the word is what we focus on in this chapter.

Political corruption can rattle a candidate to their core, prematurely ending many a political career, the residue oftentimes unshakable. Or…so we thought. Now former United States President Donald J. Trump was the center of countless scandals involving women, money, and some of the most powerful people in the world. According to Timothy Kuhner, author of Tyranny of Greed: Trump, Corruption, and the Revolution to Come claims, “During his campaign and first presidential term, Donald J. Trump became a transparent catalyst for political corruption, crony capitalism, prejudice, and climate change” (2020). A Teflon presidency left many Americans scratching their heads at this one: How can a man involved in so many scandals win an election?

As we discover regarding this consignment of political corruption ads, everything may not be what it seems. Corruption likely matters to the American people, but voters seem willing to brush scandals aside and more heavily weigh other political factors (at least among Trump supporters). Regardless of how much money spent defacing the other on their “questionable” pasts, does it truly matter? The American people will see what they want to see, and they vote accordingly. Nam H. Nguyen, co-author of Political Corruption and Mergers and Acquisitions cites none other than President-Elect Joseph Biden claiming that “Corruption is a cancer: a cancer that eats away at a citizen’s faith in democracy, diminishes the instinct for innovation and creativity; already-tight national budgets, crowding out important national investments. It wastes the talent of entire generations.” (Nguyen et. al., 2019).

Through this paper, I argue that corruption in fact plays a role in the outcome of political elections. However, at times Americans are willing to overlook the transgressions of their own party figure.

Research Question and Methodology

Research Question: How did the candidate’s advertising frame match up against their opponents? Data was collected via an independent set of 50 political advertisements focused on the corruption forms addressed in this section. The political ads were catalogued for three variables: Creator of Advertisement, Who the Advertisement Supports, and Length of Advertisement. Additionally, 3rd party advertisements were broken into Pro-Biden and Pro-Trump regarding their content. The content of each ad was further divided into ads about 1 – Biden’s Long Career in Office, 2 – Hunter Biden, 3 – Biden as a “Pawn of Radical Left, 4 – Biden Scandal and 5 – Trumps General Actions and Scandal, 6 – Trump’s Taxes and Money.

Figure 2: Ad Source

Results

Figure 2 shows the demographic of ad sponsor. The largest portion of persona-based corruption ads were produced by 3rd party PAC or organization. In volume the ads were more in favor of former President Trump (32, 58% pro-Trump, 18, 42% Pro Biden). The average length of these ads was over 57 seconds with the highest number of ad 30 seconds, the standard television ad space length, but many of the ads in support of Donald Trump ran long, the longest running over three minutes, indicating they were created for social media rather than television. Much of Trump’s material came from speeches, meaning these videos were a little longer than his democrat counterpart. The sheer volume of ads supporting Trump was largely in the former President’s favor.

Pro Trump spots (32) was a much larger set of ads than Biden (18). Trump friendly PACs and Trump himself paid more apparent attention to the (persona) corruption ads producing nearly double what supporters of Biden issued going after Trump’s corruption. with this nearly 2:1 ratio of corruption ads in favor of Trump, Biden’s time in the “corruption spotlight” was grim. This data does not account for the proportion of ads that actually ran on TV or were deployed on social media. The widely believed refrain of a “Corrupt Trump” may account for needing less ads to make the case. It also could be that the eminent number of Trump ads was needed to tag Biden for the same reason, to counterbalance widely held public beliefs.

Third party ads were a major subset of these advertisements. It seems that nearly 70% of the ads in this set were created by third parties, significantly reducing the amount of resources the campaigns had to put into these corruption ads.

The ads were also categorized for their content (see Figure 3) that: 1-Biden’s Long Career in Office, 2- Hunter Biden, 3- Biden as a “Pawn of Radical Left”, 4 – Biden Scandal and 5- Trumps General Actions and Scandal, 6 – Trump’s Taxes and Money. Trump’s people typically went after the same two points. About a quarter of the anti-Biden ads went after his lying for 47 years in United States Government, and the other three quarters revolved around his son, Hunter Biden, and his “doings” in Ukraine and China. Biden claimed he knew nothing about what Hunter was doing overseas, but Trump’s team believes otherwise.

Most of the ads against Trump were speaking to his aggressive tendencies with women, lack of productivity in office, and various “mini-scandals” in a compilation. Anti-Trump ads regarding his general scandal and behavior led all categories among themes. Both sides hit the same points over and over, ads within a category were largely repetitive.

The Hunter Biden scandal officially took hold in mid-October, only a few weeks before America chose their next leader. Biden’s ads went after Trump’s personality and the choices made in office. Biden’s ads (of which he put out very little from his personal campaign) were rather vague and limited in number. Did it seem to matter? Trump and his PACs/donors spend millions of dollars on slander ads on the Biden corruption scandals, did it pay off in the long run?

Discussion

The original research question asked “How did the candidate’s advertising frame match up against their opponents? The results from the data shows that while historically slander ads have a great impact on election results, former President Donald Trump wrote his own demise, without the help of Joe Biden, with his long list of previous corruption scandals. Americans can overlook past situations reconciling with that in their heads. In this partisan world, if their party sanctions something said, it is written in stone (forgiven) for many voters.

The major takeaway from this collection of corruption political ads is that people may not always be influenced, at least in this election cycle by the allegations made by politicians and PACs supporting the candidates. The main reason for this is the competing storyline structure of how this election transpired. Each day, it seemed like the United States was graced with another major political outrage. This caused many Americans to eventually become numb to scandals. With each side going after the other the perception is created of the “same degree” of blame for both campaigns.

From a point of view Donald Trump and company may have spent money bashing Biden all for nothing. The election was one of the most polarized in recent American history, most American voters were very much either for or against Donald Trump and his campaign. Of course, the ineffectiveness of ads was unlikely the case. They likely reinforced the converted, but more importantly they may have served to neutralize the shock or moral response to charges of corruption; if everyone is corrupt it then is no longer a defining issue. Despite the advertising push to further alienate or neutralize voters, over 80 million people, in part, rejected Trump’s corruption counterpunch and voted for Joe.

The phenomena I examined, the political advertisements in the 2020 election cycle, centered on character indictments linked to the candidate. If a candidate has nothing to hide or distract from, there is no need to heavily play offense. What voter can conjecture from these ads is that Trump ads aimed to manage the narrative. If Biden had wanted to play offense, he would have had more ammunition. The Atlantic gives a few of the following examples of Trump’s scandals, countless sexual assault scandals, beauty pageant scandals, racial housing discrimination, mafia ties, Trump University, bankruptcies, refusing to pay workers, etc. (Graham, 2020). Biden (relatively) chose to let the American people make their decision about who was more corrupt, leaving third parties to amplify those charges. Overall, the ads mirror how divisive America has become.

Conclusion

As anticipated advertisements presented recurring themes of suppressing citizen’s right to vote by mail, defunding the USPS, and the never-ending debate on unsolicited mail-in ballots. Furthermore, the corruption narratives relating to vote by mail violated the definition set forth as the abuse of public office for private gain, violating conditions of exclusivity and duplicity. However, such advertisements relating to the Hunter Biden scandal leave room for claims of duplicitous abuse of public office for private gain. Additionally, we see that Donald Trump and his supporters attacked Joe Biden’s campaign regarding corruption issues, by more than double what Biden’s supporters attacked in Trump’s campaign. While corruption is not tied to ideology in this cycle it may have been tied to a specific candidate. The 2020 election provided a plethora of corruption issues, whether it was Hunter Biden’s laptop that Rudy Giuliani mysteriously “found” in a pawn shop, to Donald Trump paying lower taxes than nearly all Americans, we see both campaigns (and their respective third parties) attacking each other over the candidates alleged corruption scandals. Mainstream and alternative media often depict a partisan flavor regarding political corruption, yet both parties found reason to advertise to further their agendas. Corruption has impacted many narrative points in the 2020 election cycle allowing a unique opportunity for critique.

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