 Major attempted to get selected as a candidate for a more promising seat, though despite numerous attempts was unsuccessful.Growing increasingly frustrated, Major resolved to make one last attempt, applying for selection to the safe Conservative seat of Huntingdonshire in December 1976, which he won.Major was in some ways an odd choice, being a born-and-bred Londoner in a largely rural constituency still home to many landed families, however he was seen as being the most likely to win-over the increasingly large numbers of upwardly mobile London over-spill families living in the area, and he was helped to familiarise himself with the area by local MP David Renton.