A marginal seat or swing seat is a constituency held with a small majority in a legislative election, generally one conducted under a single-winner voting system. In Canada, they may be known as target ridings. The opposite is a safe seat.
These seats only require a small swing to change hands and therefore are typically the focus of most campaign resources. The concentration of money and manpower in areas where they will make the most difference is known as targeting.
Read more about Marginal Seat: Strategies For Securing Swing Seats
Famous quotes containing the words marginal and/or seat:
“Of course I’m a black writer.... I’m not just a black writer, but categories like black writer, woman writer and Latin American writer aren’t marginal anymore. We have to acknowledge that the thing we call “literature” is more pluralistic now, just as society ought to be. The melting pot never worked. We ought to be able to accept on equal terms everybody from the Hassidim to Walter Lippmann, from the Rastafarians to Ralph Bunche.”
—Toni Morrison (b. 1931)
“I now leave Charleston, the seat of Satan, dissipation, and folly.”
—Administration in the State of Sout, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)