Marginal Seat

4 Key excerpts on "Marginal Seat"

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  eBook - ePub

  British Elections and Parties Review

  • David Denver, Justin Fisher, Steve Ludlam, Charles Pattie(Authors)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  What is a marginal constituency? The concept of marginality is used to direct attention to those seats which are most likely to change hands at the next election. There is, of course, no guarantee that a Marginal Seat will change hands; that depends on the actual behaviour of the voters in the following election. However, the perception of a seat as marginal influences the nature of electoral competition in that seat. First, perceived marginals make the obvious target for the party organizations, which can therefore be expected to concentrate their resources in those seats. Second, a seat which is seen as being marginal offers voters more plausible opportunities for effective tactical voting. Marginals are, therefore, different and, in terms of electoral competition, particularly important seats.

  Because they are so significant, especially at elections which are expected to be close, accurate identification of marginals is important. Already, lists of 'marginals' are being published in Britain in preparation for the next general election, taking into account the recent boundary changes (see for example, New Statesman and Society, 1995), both to identify key target seats to the party organizations and as a guide to tactical voting for the electorate.

  If marginals are so important, then how can we identify them? As Norris and Crewe (1994; 216) point out, 'there is no consistent definition of a "Marginal Seat'". The simple answer is that the margin between the parties which came first and second at the last election should be 'small'. A conventional definition of 'small' might be 'within ten percentage points in terms of the total number of votes cast for all parties'. Conversely, seats where the gap is large are defined as 'safe'. Of course, such a cut-off is arbitrary —we could choose another value. Equally, we can give a specific 'marginality' (or 'safeness') value for a given constituency in terms of the percentage point gap between the first and second parties. In its favour, this measure of marginality is extremely easy to calculate requiring only knowledge of the number of votes for the first and second parties.

  However, let us note a key point about this definition of marginality — it is wholly arbitrary in terms of actual performance. By this we mean that it generates a definition which is rarely (if ever?) checked against reality. How often are 'safe' seats lost? How often are 'marginal' seats retained? This question is seldom explored; as Norris and Crewe (1994: 202) have noted, some authors 'mistakenly assume that the marginality of a seat is evidence of vulnerability to turnover' (see e.g., Curtice, 1992).

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  Elections in Britain

  A Voter’s Guide

  • D. Leonard, R. Mortimore(Authors)
  • 2001(Publication Date)
  • Palgrave Macmillan

    (Publisher)

  A safe seat held by one party is of course a hopeless seat for the others. A Marginal Seat is one where the existing majority is small enough for there to be a realistic prospect for it to be captured by an opposing party. For most of the post-war period the great majority of Marginal Seats were at issue between Labour and the Conservatives. Only a small minority of seats (outside Northern Ireland) were regarded as being vulnerable to attack by another party, either the Liberals or the Scottish or Welsh Nationalists (Plaid Cymru). But the emergence of the SDP-Liberal Alliance and foundation of the Liberal Democrats has created a whole new category of Marginal Seats, most of which were previously regarded as being strongholds for the Conservatives. It is impossible to give precise definitions of safe and Marginal Seats, but in practice those with a majority of more than 10 per cent of the votes cast (or roughly 5000 votes) have been unlikely to change hands at a general election, though the ‘landslide’ election of 1997 was an exception to this. (Much larger changes occur at by-elections, where many more seats should be regarded as marginal.) On this rough-and-ready definition, some 130 out of the 659 seats in the House of Commons elected in 2001 can be regarded as marginal. Of these, 42 are defended by Conservatives, 58 by Labour members, 19 by the Liberal Democrats, 3 by the SNP, 1 by Plaid Cymru and 7 by various parties in Northern Ireland. 14 It has become common practice to convert the voting figures in constituency contests into percentages. This enables the ‘swing’ to be calculated. The term ‘swing’ was first applied to elections by David Butler. It is defined as the average of one party’s gain and another’s loss. Thus if at one election the Conservatives poll 50 per cent of the votes and Labour 45 per cent and at the next election the figures are reversed, there has Constituencies and the Electoral System 37 been a swing to Labour of 5 per cent.

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  Privileging Industry

  The Comparative Politics of Trade and Industrial Policy

  • Fiona McGillivray(Author)
  • 2018(Publication Date)
  • Princeton University Press

    (Publisher)

  In majoritarian systems with strong par- ties, one vote is not as good as any other vote. Votes in marginal districts are more valuable, since winning the marginal districts is the key to winning the election. It costs more to buy off these voters, but it is worth the expense because their votes are more valuable. In both cases it is extremely costly to lure away voters who have strong opposition-party loyalty. In PR systems it is cost effective to target loyal core voters; in majoritarian systems it is cost effective to target voters in Marginal Seats. While governments in PR systems appear risk averse and governments in majoritarian systems appear risk ac- ceptant, this behavior is shaped by the structure of the political system. THE DYNAMICS OF TRADE POLICY: SHIFTING INFLUENCE An industry’s political clout does not always remain constant over time. As discussed earlier, cutlery’s political influence diminished once the electoral landscape changed and Sheffield’s electoral districts became safe Labour seats. Here I explore the dynamic aspects of industry protection and ask what politi- cal factors change trade and industrial policy. 58 As the Sheffield case suggests, in strong-party majoritarian systems a change in the marginality of districts affects an industry’s political influence. Empiri- cally, marginality is reasonably stable in the medium term. Yet voter realign- ment—such as occurred in Canada in the 1980s—can cause a major shift in marginal districts. While such sudden changes are rare, economic development and shifts in the salient political issues produce gradual shifts in the distribution of Marginal Seats. In both Australia and the United Kingdom textiles have maintained their privileged positions because their semirural locations have remained party competitive throughout the postwar period. Other industries have seen their fate change. Austin-Rover, a United Kingdom automobile pro- ducer, was concentrated around Birmingham in the Midlands region.

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  Political Communication in Britain

  The Leader's Debates, the Campaign and the Media in the 2010 General Election

  • Roger Mortimore, Simon Atkinson, D. Wring(Authors)
  • 2011(Publication Date)
  • Palgrave Macmillan

    (Publisher)

  Marginality and tactical voting Both Conservatives and Labour needed to ensure awareness (at least among their own supporters) of the marginality of these constituencies, the need for a high turnout and the case for tactical voting. Given the extensive boundary changes in England and Wales, this was perhaps even more needed in 2010 than in most elections. The surveys showed scant signs that any of these had been achieved. In each of the five surveys, residents were asked whether they lived in a marginal constituency or not. Strictly speaking, the constituencies included in the surveys were not ‘marginal’ in the normal sense – the winning candidate at the previous election had won by a minimum of 10 per cent of the vote and by 18 per cent in the most extreme cases. Nevertheless, when most media commentators spoke of ‘Marginal Seats’ it was this sort of constituency, where the outcome was expected to be close, to which they were referring. In March, only a quarter (25 per cent) said that they lived in a marginal constituency, while 45 per cent admitted they didn’t know. This awareness of the closeness of the con- test did not seem to increase significantly over the course of the cam- paign, and in the final poll we still found only just over a quarter, 27 per cent, saying that they lived in a marginal constituency (Table 8.4). Throughout the campaign, those who said they were certain to vote were at least as likely to think that their constituency was not marginal Table 8.4 Awareness of marginality Q. As far as you know, do you live in a marginal constituency? By marginal constituency I mean a constituency where the current MP has only a narrow majority? 19–22 March % 30 Mar– 5 Apr % 16–19 April % 23–26 April % 30 April– 2 May % Yes 25 31 30 30 27 No 30 30 30 29 33 Don’t know 45 40 40 41 40 Source: Ipsos MORI/Reuters Base: c. 1,000 residents aged 18+ in key Marginal Seats 118 Roger Mortimore, Helen Cleary and Tomasz Mludzinski as those who thought they might not vote.

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