When Blame Is Clear and Coverage Is Harsh: How Negative Economic News Turns Clarity into Electoral Punishment

Amid the growing body of research on executive accountability for economic performance, the conditions under which citizens effectively punish incumbents remain insufficiently understood. While existing studies acknowledge the relevance of both responsibility attribution and evaluative information, they tend to treat these mechanisms in isolation. This paper advances the literature by placing media tone at the centre of electoral accountability and by theorising its interaction with responsibility clarity as a key driver of incumbent punishment. We argue that negative economic news is not merely background information, but a powerful evaluative cue whose political consequences depend on the clarity of responsibility attribution. Negative economic coverage exerts an independent constraining effect on incumbent support, but it becomes electorally consequential above all when institutional, media, and cognitive responsibility cues allow voters to translate harsh evaluations into political blame. Where responsibility attribution is blurred—due to institutional complexity, fragmented information environments, or limited voter competences—the punitive effect of negative tone is substantially attenuated. We test this argument through a comparative longitudinal analysis of Ireland, Portugal, and Spain between 2002 and 2025. The study combines original content analysis of economic news coverage—capturing both the salience and the tone of economic reporting—with representative survey data from the European Social Survey. Electoral accountability is operationalised through vote choice for the incumbent party. The empirical strategy relies on binary logistic regression models with interaction terms and predicted probabilities, controlling for economic evaluations and socio-demographic characteristics. The results show that a higher share of negative economic coverage significantly reduces the likelihood of voting for the incumbent, net of individual economic perceptions. Crucially, interaction models demonstrate that negative tone translates into electoral punishment primarily under conditions of high responsibility clarity, with the strongest effects observed in Ireland and weaker, more inconsistent patterns in Portugal and Spain. Evidence for moderation by political interest is more limited, suggesting clear boundaries to cognitive mobilisation effects. By demonstrating that media tone is both an independent force and a conditional amplifier of electoral accountability, this paper contributes to research on economic voting, media effects, and democratic accountability in comparative perspective.