Campaign Corner: What does research tell us?

Welcome to a new series of posts, each of which will look to give three tips about commonly asked campaign issues. Do get in touch if you have any questions you would like to suggest.

Today’s Campaign Corner question: What can Liberal Democrat campaigners learn from research that academics and others have done into British politics?

There is a huge literature of potentially relevant research, especially if you also cast your net outside Britain or look at research in other fields that is also applicable to politics. But for three good starters I would pick out:

1. Voters want “local” candidates – quite what “local” means to voters is open to debate and interpretation, which means that someone can make themselves a local candidate even if they were born and went to school elsewhere. Some of the most successful candidates I’ve known have been viewed as local by voters because of their regular presence in the community and track record of taking up relevant issues, even though they have lived the wrong side of a political boundary. Local isn’t just what your birth certificate or house keys say; it’s what you do.
2. A bar chart really is the best way of presenting relative voting information – don’t mess around with pie charts and the like because the research shows people find them harder to understand.
3. The best way of getting people more involved in the party is to have a sliding scale of greater activity which you nudge newcomers along over time. That means both having more than just “please deliver leaflets” as an answer to “how can I help?” and also it means keeping good records so you can work out what is best to ask different people to help with next.