We’ve got them on the list: contacting, canvassing and voting in a British general election campaign Ron Johnston a, * , David Cutts b , Charles Pattie c , Justin Fisher d a School of Geographical Sciences, University of Bristol, Bristol BS8 1SS, UK b Institute for Social Change, University of Manchester, Manchester M13 9PL, UK c Department of Geography, University of Sheffield, Sheffield S10 2TN, UK d Magna Carta Institute, Brunel University, Uxbridge UB8 3PH, UK article info Article history: Received 3 August 2011 Received in revised form 23 October 2011 Accepted 15 November 2011 Keywords: Canvassing Campaigning Panel survey Contact types Great Britain 2010 Election abstract Many voters are canvassed by British political parties in the months and weeks immedi- ately preceding a general election – but many are not. The parties are selective in whom they make contact with, and where. They focus on those in marginal constituencies who are likely to vote for them – and having identified them early in the process they contact them again, seeking to sustain that support in the seats where the contest overall will be either won or lost. A large panel survey conducted immediately before and after the 2010 general election allows detailed insight into that pattern of canvassing, identifying who the parties contacted, and where, in the six months prior to the election being called, and then who were contacted during the month immediately preceding polling day, and in how many different ways. Each party focused on its own supporters in the marginal constit- uencies, and in the middle-class neighbourhoods within those constituencies, but whereas the Conservatives, expecting to win the election, campaigned most intensively in the seats they lost by relatively small margins at the previous contest, Labour and the Liberal Democrats fought defensive campaigns in the seats that they won then. Such tactics were successful; the more ways in which respondents were contacted by a party, the more likely they were to vote for it. Ó 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. In 2007 the UK Labour party spent over £1million preparing for a general election that the Prime Minister was expected to call in October of that year. Target seats were identified, census data examined to determine which groups of voters – according to where they lived – should be targeted within those constituencies, customised leaf- lets and posters designed and printed for each candidate, and 1.5 million personalised letters to voters in marginal seats prepared ready for posting. The election was not called, however, and the money was wasted (Watt, 2010, Chapter 12). So, too, was money spent by all parties in the individual constituencies, where candidates and their supporters geared themselves up for ‘the election that never was’. Such preparations are typical of recent British general elections as the main parties focus an increasing amount of effort on identifying potential supporters and then ensuring that they turn out to vote. They concentrate on the marginal constituencies. Most constituencies fall outside this category, however; they are considered safe, won by a large enough majority at the previous contest(s) that the probability of their being captured is so low that other parties make little effort to win them. Voters in such seats attract little consideration during the campaign. The central parties give their local organisations little, if any, * Corresponding author. Tel.: þ44 (0)117 928 9116; fax: þ44 (0)117 928 7878. E-mail address: r.johnston@bristol.ac.uk (R. Johnston). Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Electoral Studies journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/electstud 0261-3794/$ – see front matter Ó 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.electstud.2011.11.002 Electoral Studies 31 (2012) 317–329