In a democracy, electoral campaigns play a significant role in mobilizing the voters’ choices. Campaigning as a political strategy accomplishes three necessary tasks — it connects the parties and their leaders with the electorate; it introduces the voter to the party manifesto and candidate’s/party’s vision; and it builds a perception about who will win the election based on engagement with these campaigns.
The CSDS-Lokniti post-poll survey 2024 shows that most voters are interested in the election campaigns and decide their vote for a particular candidate during the campaigning period. The data further indicates that Congress and State parties contacted more voters via social media and door-to-door campaigns than the BJP. These responses in light of the increased vote share of the Congress, INDIA alliance, and regional parties in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections hints at the crucial role political campaigning might play on the electoral battleground. This argument emphasises the need to engage deeper with the pivotal role of political campaigning in making and breaking a winner.
Time of vote choice
Our study shows that 41% of the respondents decided whom to vote for during the electoral campaign period (Table 1). This points out that voters wait for the candidate to be announced and the election campaign to unfold before making a choice. This decision is based on which candidate and political party can persuade the voter with their promises, manifesto, and campaigning tactics.
In contrast, 28% of the respondents decided their vote before the candidate was announced. They can be called early deciders or staunch party supporters for whom the party ideology trumps the candidates or the campaign. They identify with the political party and form the core voter base.
The third group are the late deciders, consisting of 28% of the respondents in the post-poll data. They choose their candidate a day or two before voting or on the day of the elections. Here too, the impact of campaign is bound to be considerable.
The above point that election campaigns are vital in shaping voting choices can also be substantiated by underlining the electorate’s interest in campaigns (Table 2). In the survey, 71% of the respondents showed a great deal or somewhat interest in the election campaign. This data indicate that voters want to know what the party and their candidate offer, which helps them to make an informed choice. Interestingly, 23% of the respondents were uninterested in the election campaign.
Campaigning strategies
Finally, the data assist in decoding the bigger picture by presenting campaigning strategy as one reason shaping electoral outcomes. Contrary to the expectation that BJP would be more aggressively engaging in the campaign, figures in Table 3 reveal a somewhat lesser proportion of respondents being reported having been contacted by the BJP. Congress and the State parties contacted more voters through social media and door-to-door campaigns than the BJP. In the case of social media campaigns (phone calls, text messages, or WhatsApp and Facebook), 51% of the total respondents in the survey were contacted by Congress, and 54% were contacted by the State parties (the largest two parties in the State). In contrast, this number stands at 44% for the BJP. Similarly, in the case of door-to-door campaigning, the percentage stands at 46% and 47% for the Congress and the State parties, with BJP trailing behind at 40%. There is a possibility that the BJP relied more heavily on star campaigner rallies, public meetings, and the appeal of its leadership.
In conclusion, the post-poll data shows that voters’ choice depends on three factors: the degree of staunch support for a party, interest levels of voters in electoral campaigns, and the political party’s campaigning strategies.
The authors are researchers at Lokniti-CSDS.
