Safe seat

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

A safe seat is a seat in a legislature which is regarded as fully secured by a certain political party with very little chance of an election upset because of the nature of the electorate in the constituency concerned.

Examples of safe seats are in the Labour Party heartlands of northeast England and those of the Conservative Party in the shires. Many American commentators have decried the tendency of most House seats to become safe seats, decreasing the number of contested seats in every cycle.

See also

• Rotten boroughs, the extreme example of a safe seat
• Marginal seat
• Gerrymandering