Ronald Reagan at the end of his debate with Walter Mondale, Oct. 22, 1984, Kansas City, Mo.
AP/Ron Edmonds
Self-deprecating humor can be a savvy campaign strategy – but only for certain candidates.
Raihana Asral/Shutterstock
New research suggests that raising public awareness about antimicrobial resistance may have unintended consequences.
Politicians are allowed to spam you with campaign texts.
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Spamming in texts or by robo-calls may seem perverse, but it’s unlikely to disappear. Here are some things you can expect leading up to the May election, and why they’re allowed.
Lots of money is spent on campaigns. But is that a problem?
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Congressional midterm election spending will likely hit a record $5 billion. But the spending masks the main problem with US campaign financing: who gives the money and what they may get in return.
Vote Leave campaigners, including Darren Grimes, gather with Michael Gove.
PA/ Stefan Rousseau
The Electoral Commission has ruled the official campaign to leave the EU broke funding rules.
Tom Honan/PA Archive/PA Images
The broader nature of today’s pro-choice movements show that a specific injustice can be a vehicle for highlighting wider social inequalities.
Republican candidate for Georgia’s Sixth District congressional seat Karen Handel declares victory with her husband Steve.
AP Photo/John Bazemore
But there’s little evidence the high spending changed any minds, says a political scientist who lives in the district.
There are rules about what charities can say and spend during election campaigns.
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Charities are limited in how much they can spend on campaigning. Is this justified?
Case closed.
PA/Stefan Rousseau
The decision not to take action against a number of election candidates is not a whitewash, but it shows that the law needs a rethink.
Donald Trump and WWE wrestler Bobby Lashley shave the head of CEO Vince McMahon during Wrestlemania 23 in 2007.
Carlos Osorio/AP Photo
As a candidate, Donald Trump – whose relationship with the WWE spans nearly 30 years – emulated the bombastic style of a pro wrestler. As president, it might be doing him more harm than good.
PA/Chris Radburn
It’s the biggest financial penalty ever paid by a British political party. Here’s how the story unfolded.
Trumpisms at your fingertips.
AP Photo/John Locher
What can future politicians learn from the president-elect’s social media presence while on the campaign trail?
That grassroots vibe.
EPA
At first it seemed comical that such an unpolished campaign could win over American voters. No one’s laughing now.
In a historical context, Labor’s ‘Medicare SMS’ was not particularly surprising or even unprecedented.
AAP/Alex Ellinghausen
The idea of hitting voters with a powerful message on election day is just the culmination of three trends in Australian campaign communication that have been brewing for decades.
Medicare wasn’t a major election issue at the start of the campaign.
AAP/Mick Tsikas
The 2016 election has shown that when there is a close result, negative advertising can be a very powerful campaign tool.
Bill Shorten takes the ubiquitous selfie with the media on the campaign bus.
AAP/Mick Tsikas
If the way voters interact with the leaders’ Facebook pages is any indication, social media is not having the impact on the campaign that it is assumed to have.
I don’t care if it’s national or local, it’s blocking my drive.
PA/Chris Radburn
Bringing you up to speed on the political hot potato that may have passed you by.
Labor is determined to portray Bill Shorten as decisive, free of his rhetorical ‘zingers’.
AAP/Scott Gelston
Both the Liberal and Labor parties focused their very first television ads of the 2016 campaign on Labor leader Bill Shorten.
‘Candidate’ has its roots in the word ‘candid’, to be frank. It’s hard not to believe that we’ve strayed a little from those noble aspirations.
Cesare Maccari/Wikimedia Commons
Many of the most commonly used election terms have a long linguistic history, stretching from ancient Rome to modern-day America and Australia.
Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament’s London to Aldermaston march, 1958: an early example of mass political mobilisation to achieve a specific goal.
CND
Political campaigns today are presented as products of bottom-up participation, not top-down direction. But even if a campaign appears grassroots-driven, it’s likely to be run from the centre.