ABSTRACT
All parties now attempt to focus their local campaigning efforts on 'key' or 'target' seats and an initial general indication of the effects of campaigning can be obtained by comparing the parties' performances in their targets as opposed to other seats. Table 1 shows the overall change in vote shares for each of the parties in three categories of seat.3 At first sight, targeting by the Conservatives does not appear to have been very successful - the increase in their share of the vote in target seats was smaller than in the seats that they already held and almost the same as in those that they were unlikely to gain. On the other hand, Labour's worst performance by far was in the seats that they already held and did not target, while the decline in their vote share was smallest in their targets. The Liberal Democrats also did considerably better in their relatively small number of targets than in their safe or unlikely seats. This is at best indirect evidence of the effects of campaigning, however. In what follows, we discuss problems in measuring the impact of campaigning on electoral outcomes and present more direct evidence about the impact of constituency campaigning in the 2001 general election.
