Negative campaigning is trying to win an election by attacking an opponent rather than emphasizing ones own positive attributes or policies.

There are a number of techniques of negative campaigning, the most blatant and what some consider  he most effective is running advertisements attacking an opponent's personality or distorting their record. Some examples would be painting an opponent as soft on criminals, dishonest, corrupt, or a supporter of higher taxes. One common negative campaigning tactic is attacking the other side for running a negative campaign.

Dirty tricks are also common in political campaigns. These generally involve secretly leaking damaging information to the media. This isolates a candidate from backlash and also does not cost any money. The material must be substantive enough to attract media interest, however, and if the truth is discovered it could severely damage a campaign. If it is negative but relevant and verifiably true, there is no need to "leak" it, just put it out in full public view.

Often a campaign will use outside organizations, such as lobby groups, to launch attacks. These can be claimed to be coming from a neutral source and if the allegations turn out not to be true the attacking candidate will not be damaged if the links cannot be proven.

In the USA, negative campaigning can be conducted by proxy - for instance the highly partisan adverts placed by "527" groups, allegedly independent bodies, like MoveOn.org and Swift Boat Veterans for Truth as seen in the Presidential election of 2004.

Push polls are telephone calls disguised as polls that are actually attacks. They might ask a question like "How would you react if Candidate A was revealed to beat his wife?", giving the impression that Candidate A might beat his wife. Members of the media and of the opposing party are deliberately not called making these tactics all but invisible and unprovable.

Other dirty tricks include trying to feed an opponent's team false information hoping they will use it and embarrass themselves.

Negative tactics are often used by challengers as well as incumbents. It is probably used by those who feel insecure whether or not they are in the lead.

Negative campaigning is usually seen in a negative light. It does not focus on substantive issues or policies and rather tends to focus on personality. A demonstrated effect of negative campaigning is that while it motivates the base of support it tends to alienate centrist and undecided voters from the political process reducing voter turnout and radicalizing politics.

This is what the negative political strategists will tell you:

"In winner-take-all elections, negative campaigning can be effective. Usually there are only two people running. Only one person can win. If I am a candidate in a winner-take-all race, if I can turn people off to my opponent and make them not want to vote for him, that is just as effective as getting them to vote for me. It is also a lot easier to try and attack my opponent to make them look bad than it is to convince voters to support me. It's easier just to run a commercial on television with frightening music in the background and distort my opponent's record than it is to talk about issues and policies."

Negative campaigning "just drops the mood of the electorate like a rock," said Bruce Cain, director of UC Berkeley's Institute for Governmental Studies. A recent exit poll shows alienation of voters, with the biggest factor throwing a soggy blanket over the electorate was the unremittingly negative tone of campaigns waged by the candidates.

When you engage in negative campaigning, you are saying in effect, " the success of my campaign depends on the inadequacies and failures of my opponent." When you set a negative word, campaign, slogan, tactic, or strategy in motion, what does it produce? Willing votes or warning flags? Remember, people don't HAVE to vote.