Core vote strategy

This theory argues that low turnout elections can be won by energising core supporters on issues of disproportionate importance to them.

The core vote strategy is associated with William Hague’s unsuccessful 2001 General Election campaign. Expecting American levels of voter apathy Tory strategists attempted to maximise their share of the popular vote by energising their core supporters. This led to a focus on tax cuts, Britain’s loss of powers to Brussels, rising asylum numbers and lawlessness.

Michael Howard's 2005 dog-whistle emphasis on immigration, gypsies and crime also had a core vote character.

It is interesting to speculate as to whether the ‘core vote strategy’ actually appeals most to traditional Tory or Labour voters? Poorer and 'striving' communities have always been the greatest victims of crime and least able to afford (or avoid) tax rises. Many once-Conservative voters started supporting New Labour because they could afford their luxury policies. If wealthier voters are no longer reliable Conservative supporters it is sensible for the party to hunt for votes elsewhere.

The ‘And theory of conservatism’ argues that the ‘core vote strategy’ is half-right but needs to be twinned with a range of ‘tender’ policies to stop it repelling as many votes as it attracts.

Comments

[James Hellyer]

Danny Finkelstein has denied that Hague and Howard ran "core vote" camapigns. He preferred the term "transfusion strategy". The COnservatives have been losing voters from the professional classes, and "Instead of trying to lure those people back, Conservatives have been trying to replace them with other people, people with less “advanced” social views. It’s not been a core vote strategy, it’s been a transfusion strategy. It has not worked. It will not work. And not just because the number of AB voters is growing and turns out in higher proportions. It’s also because AB views rub off on everyone else. The Tory party can try to change the opinions of AB voters. Or it can accept those opinions and adapt to them. What it cannot do is ignore them. The thing about the chattering classes, you see, is that they chatter."

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,21129-1606326,00.html