Conceived in Harlesden: Candidate-Centred Campaigning in British General Elections

Caitlin Milazzo,Joshua Townsley

doi:10.1093/pa/gsy040

Caitlin Milazzo, Joshua Townsley

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1093/pa/gsy040

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Abstract

Abstract Recent decades have seen an increasing trend towards the personalisation of election campaigns, even in systems where candidates have few structural incentives to emphasise their personal appeal. In this article, we build on a growing literature that points to the importance of candidate characteristics in determining electoral success. Using a dataset composed of more than 3700 leaflets distributed during the 2015 and 2017 general elections, we explore the conditions under which messages emphasising the personal characteristics of prospective parliamentary candidates appear in British general election campaign materials. Even when we account for party affiliation, we find that there are important contextual and individual-level factors that predict the use of candidate-centred messaging.

Highlights

The personal attributes of prospective parliamentary candidates (PPCs) feature prominently in the campaign materials distributed in British general elections
In this paper, we use the largest dataset of British election leaflets available to date to explore variation in the personalisation of candidates’ campaign materials during the 2015 and 2017 general elections
With regards to party-level differences, our analyses suggest that the decision to emphasise candidate’s personal attributes varies both across parties and within parties over time

Summary

Introduction

The personal attributes of prospective parliamentary candidates (PPCs) feature prominently in the campaign materials distributed in British general elections. A candidate might emphasise her connections to the local community; perhaps she was born there, it is her place of long-term residence, or her children attend a local school. Predicting candidate emphasis in British campaign material The easiest way to compare the personalisation of candidates’ campaigns would be to take the percentage of each candidate’s leaflets that emphasise their traits and/or local connections. We take a simple measure of incumbency – the candidate is either an incumbent or she is not – and find that, consistent with H4, leaflets from incumbents are significantly less likely to contain highly personalised messages In both elections, the difference in the likelihood that a leaflet from an incumbent MP will include a personalised message is roughly -10 points across all types of messages, with incumbency having the largest effect on likelihood that a leaflet will emphasise the candidate’s traits (-15 points in 2015 and -14 points in 2017). Future research may wish to consider this relationship in further detail

Conclusion

Party Conservative Labour Lib Dem SNP Green UKIP All

Findings

Local ties