If it appears that your favorite candidate has been flooding your e-mail box with tales of woe lately, here's one reason why: New research shows that the Internet loves an underdog candidate.

Apair of behavioral scientists, Todd Rogers of the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and Don A. Moore of the University of California at Berkeley, examined whether campaign donors are more likelyto open theirwalletsfora candidate who's projected to win or one who's projected to lose.

Working with theonline fundraising and digital marketing firm Anne Lewis Strategies, the researcherstracked the outcomes of e-mails sent ontwodays in June to the e-mail list of the Democratic Governors Association. The e-mails were aimed at fundraising around the gubernatorial race pittingFlorida Democrat Charlie Crist againstRepublican Rick Scott. The e-mails were identicalexcept for the first line: One said: "We've fallen behind Rick Scott in the latest polls," while the other said: "Rick Scott is LOSING in three straight polls."

Luckily for science, the polling on the race has been tight enough to justify either interpretation of the state of the contest.

The down-by-a-hair e-mails turned out to be the big winner, with people far more likely to support a candidate who is barely losing than one just barely winning. The underdog e-mails raised 60 percent more money than those that suggested that the race was still close but that the preferred candidate had pulled ahead, according to the study released last week, "The Motivating Power of Under-Confidence."

"This constant testing of widely varying messages could generate the pattern we observe: messages highlighting that the candidate is barely losing may tend to dominate other messages," the study says.

This makes some intuitive sense. Voters have little interest in spending money to ensure victory. But there are wrinkles. For supporters, the idea that your candidate is losing is appealing. But the pitch doesn't work on uncommitted voters.

Rogers and Moore also found that would-be voters were more likely to support a fictional candidate when they were first presented with positive statements about their candidacy. The researchers attribute that to the behavioral practice of "herding," in whichwe humans are likely to throw our lots in with those who others seem to believe are likely to succeed.

"Talking to uncommitted voters," says Lewis, "is like going on a first date. You want them to think you're a winner. But after you've been married for 20 years, you can be a little more like, 'Yikes, I need help.'"

That helps explain one dichotomy of politics. On television, where candidates are appealing to a general audience, they're likely to talk about the strength of their campaign. But their online mailing lists tend to be made up of supporters -- one reason that candidates often appear far more sad sack in our e-mail inboxes than on our TV sets.

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The science behind why our inboxes are so full of political losers