Some underhanded campaigning tricks

Here are a couple of tricks that politicians use to gain an edge over their opponent in important elections.

Push Polling

Push polling appears similar to a normal poll; a respondent, likely online, fills out a list of questions that relate to the candidates or specific issues. But these polls are often surreptitiously managed by those who support one candidates' campaign, and their purpose is a little bit different. A push poll aims not to learn important information about those who take it, but to influence them by asserting something inaccurate and possibly negative about an opposing candidate. In 2000, John McCain was affected by push polling in the primaries that regarded his personal reputation and mental health; the polls went as far as to state that his adopted Bangladeshi daughter was actually an African-American child out of wedlock. (Sometimes they say a lot about what actually bothers people.)

Astroturfing

Astroturfing is the attempt to make it look like significant support for a policy or individual exists at the grassroots even though no or little such support exists. A prime example came in the recent news, when it appeared that spammers might be targeting the FCC website to make it appear as if significant support from average people was against net neutrality. That astroturfing was conducted through spam comments; the practice could also be carried out through the presentation of "average residents" on radio shows, TV shows or the campaign's own media who are actually collaborating directly with the campaign. Companies such as ShareBlue used social media to help astroturf in favor of, in this case, Clinton in the 2016 election, presenting videos to garner social media outrage against Trump when it would be advantageous to give him negative attention, whether to decrease pressure against Hillary or put pressure on Trump if no other controversy was running its course at the time.

http://www.insightsassociation.org/issues-policies/best-practice/push-polls-deceptive-advocacypersuasion-under-guise-legitimate-polling
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/feb/08/what-is-astroturfing
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/23/us/politics/hillary-clinton-media-david-brock.html