Political scientists usually conclude that voters dislike negative campaign ads, but we can use game theory to offer an explanation for why they continue to be used. While negative ads are (nauseatingly) commonplace in electoral competition, they are far less frequent in business competition; i.e., it is rare to see company A directly attacking the quality or character of competing company B to the extent that political candidate X attacks political candidate Y. (We might see a company talk about the insufficiencies of "the leading brand," but the negativity is very tame compared to what happens during campaign season.) How might game theory also offer an explanation for this behavior?