Policies for natural supporters
- UK/US: parties appeal to core voters with policies for them
- US: R under Trump promised to build a wall, remove undocumented migrants
- UK: BoJo discussed points-based immigration system
- Parties more on the left focus more on social justice/reducing poverty
- UK: 2024 Lab promised to improve rights for workers and renters
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US: 2024 Dems pushed for higher wealth taxation
There are a thousand billionaires in America, and they pay an average 8 percent in taxes
Social media
- Use of targeted ads and social media
- UK: Lib placed ads targeting ex-chancellor Jeremy Hunt’s (Con) constituency, highlighting how close the Lib candidate was to Hunt
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US: 2024 Kamala Harris’s ads targeted mainly women, who ~65% of impressions on her Meta accounts
- Many ads focused on women’s rights, especially wrt abortion
- In contrast 46% of Trump’s ads for women
Leaders’ personal qualities
- Emphasising their candidates’ skills and qualities
- Trump as a “dealmaker”
- Keir Starmer as the son of a toolmaker
- Sunak as the son of first-gen immigrants
- Harris who paid her way through college by working fast-food
Swing states/marginal constituencies
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2024 UK election: Con on the defence, damage control
- 87% of seats visited by Sunak were already Con
- Included usually ultra-safe seats, e.g. Thirsk and Malton in North Yorkshire
- Starmer visited 80+ seats not held by Lab, including normally safe Con seats like Nuneaton
- “aggresive expansionism”
- 2024 US election: heavy focus on swing states, including Pennsylvania
Differences
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Campaign attacks are much more personal in the US
- 2016: Trump rally chants “Lock her up”
- 1968: “If you liked Hitler, you’ll love Wallace” –opponents of segregationist candidate George Wallace
- 2024: “They are cheatin’ dogs, I will tell you that” –Trump
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Much more time, money, and focus to campaigning between elections due to midterms
- UK: much more effort spent on general elections