Voting patterns, party spending and relative location in England and Wales

CUTTS D. and WEBBER D.J. Voting patterns, party spending and relative location in England and Wales, Regional Studies. There is growing evidence that context can influence how people make voting decisions, and some of the contexts are spatially defined. Votes are cast in constituencies, but electors in one constituency may be influenced by 'events' in neighbouring constituencies, such as the intensity of party campaigning. By examining the determinants of voting patterns across constituencies in England and Wales using spatial econometric methods, this article suggests that while socio-economic factors and local campaigning are key determinants of party vote shares in constituencies, there is strong spatial autocorrelation in voting patterns. Not only does local campaigning have a positive effect on party performance in constituency j, but also empirical evidence is found of spillover effects following intensive party activity. The more a party spends on campaigning in constituencies adjacent to constituency j, the more votes it gets in constituency j. Each major political party is influenced by space to different extents with the Liberal Democrats visibly exploiting spatial autocorrelation to increase their vote shares. © 2010 Regional Studies Association