Rooted in the rational choice theory, high stake elections are considered to attract more voters than elections where the outcome is a foregone conclusion. Although measures of national level electoral competitiveness are usually thought to suffice when researching proportional electoral systems, this is not the case in countries with single-member districts. As Johnston, Matthews and Bittner (2007) and Blais and Lago (2009) point out, voters in first past the post systems are likely to (also) take into account the closeness of the race in their constituency when deciding to turn out to vote or not. Measures of the closeness of the race at the constituency level should, therefore, be modelled alongside indicators of national level competitiveness. This paper aims to shed light on the nature of the relationship – whether competing or complementary – of local and national competitiveness on individual level turnout. It does so based on the combined British National Elections Studies from 1964 to 2010 to which information on the level of electoral saliency in the respondent’s constituency has been added for all respondents in all election years. This unique data set not only allows addressing the extent to which local and national competitiveness influence individual level turnout in national elections. This paper also seeks to assess which measures of competitiveness matter more or less, and which voters are influenced most by electoral saliency.
