Ethnic groups:

• evidence suggests that ethnic groups are more likely to vote for Labour, e.g., approximately 60-70% of BME voters voted for Labour in the last 4 elections.
• there is an overlap here with class, as poorer ethnic minority groups vote Labour and the more prosperous groups favor the Conservatives

Gender:

• female voters tend marginally to favor the Conservatives, the difference, however, is smaller.
• over the past 5 elections, the disparity between the % of men and women voting either Labour or Conservative hasn't gone over 4%

Regions:

• region voting is closely associated with class, with parties having electoral heartlands and electoral deserts.
• the north of England and large urban towns and cities tend to vote Labour, and the south and rural areas tend to vote Conservative.
• traditionally, Scotland has been a Labour electoral heartland, but after the Scottish independence referendum and the SNP won 56 out of 59 Scottish Westminster seats in the 2015 GE.

Class and partisan dealignment:

• Class (de)alignment: refers to individuals identifying (or not) with a certain class.
• Partisan (de)alignment: refers to the attachment (or not) that exists between an individual and a certain political party.
• class alignment normally coexists alongside partisan alignment.

Class voting:

• certain classes have a connection with specific political parties, and will principally vote for them.
• traditionally, working-class voters have voted Labour, whereas middle-class voters have voted Conservative.
  

Age:

• Young voters (18-24): 43% Labour and 43% Conservative
• Older voters (65+): 47% Conservative and 23% Labour
• age also infleucnes turnout, the older you are, the more liekly you are going to vote, this was even true in the 2017 GE.

Rational choice theory:

• voters act like individual consumers, choosing the most sutiable 'product' on offer.
• voters consider how they would be affected by having different parties in government, and male their decisions based on who will benefit them and their families.
• therefore, successful parties are able to adapt their policies to ones that are popular with most of the electorate, e.g., Thatcher changed the Conservative Party's policies for the 1979 GE, as did Blair for New Labour in 1997.

Issue voting:

1. voters must be aware of the issue.
2. voters must have an opinion on an issue
3. voters must detect a difference between the parties on the issue
4. finally, voters must convert their preference into a vote for the party.

• issue voting is problematic as it relies on a high level of political engagement from voters, it's also not particularly good in explaining voting patterns.

Valence:

• the idea that people support the party best able to deliver on issues they care about.
• so, valence suggests that voters aren't solely concerned with policies, but also with how much they trust a party to deliver these policies.
• this might be summed up with 3 questions:

1. which party leader do I trust?
2. which party do I trust to manage the economy?
3. which party has been/ will be the most competent in government?
   

Party leader:

• the charisma and personality of party leaders are now crucial to a party's success, they are the 'brand' of their party and are often put in good positions for 'photo opportunities.
• the 2010 televised debates reinforced this view when leaders tried to avoid saying anything controversial and began to look less 'human'.
• voters start to trust them less, being unable to identify with them, voters seemed willing to vote for an 'authentic' character who would tell the truth in a language they understood, almost irrespective of the policies they supported.

Economic management:

• it is widely accepted that voters are more likely to support a party if it has managed the economy successfully while in government or is thought likely to be able to deliver economic prosperity.
• equally, voters are less likely to support a governing party that they feel has been responsible for mismanaging the economy.

Governing competency:

• an assessment of how effective a party has been in government.
• Control of events: Major's government lost power in 1997 when voters felt they were stumbling from one crisis to another and seemed unable to control events.
• Policy: the Thatcher government stuck firmly to its promises to change the economic model and was rewarded with electoral success.
• Party unity, strong leadership: the Labour party under Blair is an example of how voters rewarded the party who has a clear vision and united party.

Events:

• on 10 June 1983, Thatcher won a remarkable victory, boosting the Conservative majority from 44 seats to 143 seats, recording the largest Parliamentary landslide since Attlee's in 1945.

Long-term factors:
Class:

• ABC1 voters voted 55% Conservative and only 16% Labour and at the same time, 37% of the C2DE voted Conservative and only 22% Labour.
• nonetheless, it's worth noting that the most significant long-term factor of the 1983 election was the surge of support for the 3rd party, the Alliance of the Liberals, and the SDP.
  Age:
• Conservatives maintained their popularity across all age groups.
• it may come as a surprise to followers of elections since the turn of the Millenium that the Conservatives won 40% of the vote and over across all age categories.
  Region:
• the Conservatives made further gains in London and the South while losing seats in Scotland.
• despite winning half a million votes less than in 1979, their majority increases from 43 to 143.

Significance:

• the election was remarkable because it was fought against a backdrop of unemployment standing at over 3 million, having more than doubled since 1979.
• just 2 years before the election, opinion polls had rated Thatcher as the most unpopular PM of modern times, furthermore, the election was significant as Thatcher's landslide was gained even though the Conservative vote of 42.4% was 1.5% below its 1979 level.

Media:

• since the Falklands war, the press had built a 'Maggie' personality cult that had prepared the way for the highly personalized 1983 election campaign.
• Labour was undermined by the resolutely unsympathetic portrayal of Foot in the pro-Conservative tabloid press.
  Issues:
• the electoral revival of Thatcher and the Conservatives is commonly seen as a consequence of the 1982 Falklands War with the 'Falklands factor boosting Thatcher's satisfaction rating to the highest it would ever achieve, 59%.

Events:

• the 1997 GE resulted in a landslide Labour victory, winning 418 seats and a majority of 178, the largest since the 1930s.
• Labours 1997 election success was the Party's first since 1974, and it brought to an end 18 years in opposition.

Region:

• Labour dominated in Scotland, the North, North West, Yorkshire, and Wales.
• however, what was surprising was that Labour did well in the South, particularly in London and the South East, its vote share increased by a minimum of 5 points across every region in the UK.