Polls consistently show voters say they dislike negative advertising, yet campaigns across the country keep pouring money into it.

Political scientists, strategists and marketing experts say the answer lies in a mix of high stakes, economic anxiety, simple human psychology, and now, artificial intelligence.

A Pew Research Center survey conducted after the 2024 election found that 74 percent of voters said the campaign was "too negative," a figure that held steady from a nearly identical result in an October pre-election survey.

Travis Ridout, a political science professor at Washington State University and codirector of the Wesleyan Media Project - which tracks political advertising nationwide - said he was struck this cycle by how much of the earliest negativity came from intra-party primary fights.

"There were a lot of races where there was a lot of negativity," Ridout told The Epoch Times. "This candidate is actually a closet liberal, or this one doesn't support Donald Trump sufficiently. That sort of thing."

That dynamic defined the Texas Senate primary, where Ken Paxton, the Republican nominee and Texas attorney general, defeated incumbent Sen. John Cornyn before facing Democrat James Talarico in the general election.

Since President Donald Trump reiterated his support for Paxton's campaign in late August, more than $100 million in mostly negative ads targeting Talarico has poured in from GOP-aligned political committees, including the Senate Leadership Fund, which alone spent nearly $66 million in September. These funds have contributed to ads accusing Talarico of being a "radical liberal" and an "extremist."

"The Texas Senate race is certainly standing out, just because the negativity started so early. ... A lot of it is focused on DEI or those sorts of things, so the more cultural issues," Ridout said.

Talarico, a state representative who has out-raised Paxton but said he received little outside help from national Democratic groups, said "dark money super PACs are flooding the airwaves with lies about me and my record," at a rally at Baylor University in Waco.

Talarico has also aired ads labeling Paxton "the most corrupt politician in Texas," highlighting Paxton's 2023 impeachment by the Texas House. Paxton was later acquitted by the state Senate.

The pattern extends beyond Texas.

In Georgia and North Carolina, the Senate Leadership Fund has aired ads attacking Democratic candidates, including Sen. Jon Ossoff of Georgia, over transgender rights, reviving a line of attack from 2024.

The California governor's race has produced a new kind of attack ad. Republican Steve Hilton's campaign has aired AI-generated videos portraying Democrat Xavier Becerra as a puppet and associating him with what the campaign calls the "Democratic machine."