Parliamentary candidates and their campaign messages

As the next general election approaches, Caitlin Milazzo, Siim Trumm, and Alan Duggan reflect on the campaign messages that voters were exposed to prior to the 2019 general election. They find that candidates made little effort to personalise their election leaflets, and that targeting opponents and mentioning tactical situation in constituency was also rare. As a result, there remains much scope for candidates to personalise their campaign communications to their local race.  

At first glance, the 2019 General Election campaign appeared to be characterised by trends that are increasingly highlighted in the political commentary on British politics – from the perceived personalisation of politics, evident from the prominence of Boris Johnson and Jo Swinson in their parties’ campaign communications, to the rise of negative campaigning and growing encouragement towards tactical voting. Using data on election leaflets from the OpenElections project, we evaluate how prominent these patterns are in candidates’ local campaigns. As has long been the case, election leaflets remain the most common interaction that voters have with political elites during a general election campaign.

Candidates do not tend to talk about their personal traits
There is a lot of talk about the personalisation of politics in Britain (and beyond). The story emerging from general election leaflets, however, suggests that local campaign communications remain rather generic. While it is true that almost all candidate leaflets (91.7%) include a photo – highlighting the importance of providing voters with visual cues – very few give voters a sense the candidate’s background or expertise. Only one-in-three mention the candidate’s employment background (34.6%) or ties to the constituency (30.6%), and even fewer highlight the candidate’s family (14.1%) or their educational background (6.8%). Campaign personalisation – at least in candidates’ election leaflets – remains largely limited to referencing their name and adding a personal photo, with detailed information about candidates’ personal traits being a rare feature.

The reluctance of candidates to discuss their local ties is particularly surprising. We know that locality tends to be electorally rewarded and that more than half of British MPs were in fact born in the region in which their constituency sat by 2019. Yet, even leaflets from Brexit Party candidates, which are the most likely ones to reference local ties, only do so in a minority of occasions (40.9%). With regards to other parties, it is interesting that mentions of local ties are over twice as likely in leaflets distributed by the Labour Party candidates (37.3%) and Liberal Democrat candidates (37.9%) than in leaflets from Conservative Party candidates (17.5%).

Table 1. Percentage of candidate leaflets with personalised features

Candidates often attack opposing parties, but rarely their leaders or candidates
The narrative surrounding negative campaigning is mixed. We find evidence that a majority (68.3%) of candidate leaflets included a negative message about an opposing party in 2019, but there is some interesting party-specific variation. Green Party candidates’ leaflets were the least likely to include an attack on an opposing party (13.3%), while those from the Labour Party candidates (77.8%) and Liberal Democrat candidates (80.4%) were most likely to do so.

The story changes notably though when we focus on attacks of individuals. The percentage of leaflets with a negative mention of an opposing party leader drops to 35.2%. Leaflets from some parties were more likely to include such attacks – i.e., the Liberal Democrats at 55.8% and the Conservative Party candidates at 48.9% – but the overall frequency of party leader attacks is significantly lower than the frequency of party attacks. The move away from negativity is even more pronounced when looking at candidate attacks. It is very rare for candidate leaflets to attack an opposing candidate, with only 3.7% of those in our dataset including such a message. Therefore, while negative messaging is quite common in leaflets, we should be cautious about its prominence in the local campaign. The strategy is largely restricted to targeting an opposing party, with much less focus on individual politicians from an opposing party.

Table 2. Percentage of leaflets mentioning an opponent

Very few leaflets talk about the tactical situation in the constituency
Tactical voting is arguably on the rise. It is made easier by websites like Tactical Vote, and we generally think of it as an anti-Conservative trend. Interestingly, however, the percentage of leaflets mentioning the tactical situation in the constituency remains low – just one-in-four leaflets in the database (26%) highlighted the tactical situation in the constituency in 2019.

Once again, there is some variation along party lines. Leaflets disseminated by Liberal Democrat candidates stand out here – almost half of their leaflets (45.4%) referenced the tactical situation in the constituency. By comparison, leaflets from all other parties’ candidates rarely did so. This applies even to leaflets disseminated by the Labour Party candidates (25.1%). While a noteworthy minority of leaflets did use tactical vote messaging as a strategy, there is no evidence here to suggest that its use is widespread.

Table 3. Percentage of leaflets mentioning tactical situation in constituency

Summary
The story emerging from leaflets is striking. We know from academic research that candidates’ attributes affect their popularity, just like negative campaigning and ‘correct’ tactical voting can aid candidates’ electoral performance. Yet, most candidates do not talk about themselves in their leaflets, they refrain from personal attacks on opposing leaders and candidates, and they do not draw attention to the tactical situation in the constituency. As we head into the next general election, our research suggests that there is considerable room for candidates to tailor the campaign messages they put forward to voter locally, and doing so, may be to their benefit.

Note: You can find the OpenElections on Twitter @OpenElectionsUK. The above draws on the authors’ published work in Politics.