Polling, Partisanship, and Promoting Violence: New Developments in Impression Management From Candidate and Super PAC Advertisements.

This article analyzes the use of political impression management through "performance types" in Republican primary advertisements from 2012 and 2016, focusing on the coordinated messaging between candidates and their affiliated Super PACs—political action committees that can raise and spend unlimited funds independently of campaigns. The study finds that while many performance types identified in 2012 (such as the true conservative, working conservative, flawed conservative, saint, and traitor) persisted, the 2016 primary introduced a new and significant performance type called "the warrior," which emphasizes a willingness to use violence against foreign threats and reflects a rightward ideological shift with fascist undertones. The research highlights that candidates and Super PACs collaboratively construct these symbolic images to influence voter perceptions, with 2016 ads showing increased emphasis on ideological purity and militaristic aggression. The emergence of the warrior performance type signals broader trends of democratic erosion and the normalization of violent rhetoric in political advertising.