During presidential election campaigns in Nigeria, online media platforms deploy cartoons as strategies to underrate perceived opposition candidates. This study therefore explores how political cartoons served as subtle rhetorical tools to discredit, disparage unpopular candidates and project preferred presidential contestants by the media, particularly in mainstream newspapers via the use of imagery. Existing works have extensively addressed media framing and political communication during electioneering. However, much of this research works underplay the intersection between strategic media marketing, applied negatively, and the visual representation of political figures. This calls for an interdisciplinary fusion of verbal and non-verbal communication in imagery and language analysis. Three online news platforms: Punch, Daily Trust (DT) and BusinessDay (BD) were purposively selected because of their consistent and relevant political cartoon publications. Six political cartoons derived between November, 2018 and February 2019, representing two major political actors, Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressives Congress (APC), were purposively chosen because of preponderance of publications on them. Findings reveal that cartoonists employed sarcasm, exaggeration, and symbolism to damage the reputation of certain candidates, reinforce stereotypes, and promote voter cynicism. Notably, cartoons depicting President Muhammadu Buhari and Alhaji Atiku Abubakar elicit critical imagery to shape public perceptions, potentially influencing voter attitudes. The study highlights how cartoons served as subtle instruments of political strategy and public perception shaping during democratic contests. Keywords: Semiotics, Election, Cartoons, Media, Multimodality