Individual Characteristics and Tactical Voting in the 1987 British General Election Constituency Characteristics

In Britain in recent years the study of tactical voting has become something of a growth industry. Unresolved, however, is a key question: the number of tactical voters. Despite an election-night estimate of 17 per cent, a variety of later analysts have estimated that little more than one in twenty voters behaved tactically in 1987, a surprisingly low figure in the light of the efforts of various groups to encourage tactical voting in order to avoid fragmentation of the anti-Thatcher vote. Most recently, Heath, Curtice and Jowell, in their analysis of the British Election Study survey, report that just 6.5% of major party voters indicated in their replies a tactical motivation for their vote.

Constituency Characteristics, Individual Characteristics and Tactical Voting in the 1987 British General Election Academic Article