YouGov on behalf of the PoliticsHome website has carried out the largest ever survey of electors in British marginal seats. The headline, nationwide figures for the poll of 35,000 electors were reported by ConHome over the weekend, and showed a Labour wipeout, and a Conservative majority of 146.
Yesterday, I received a copy of the document showing most of the findings, which I have linked to above, as it is now online.
The poll findings are almost too good to be true, and I refer in particular to the summary conclusions by Anthony Wells at the back of the volume. Conservative support across the marginals is pretty solid. 50% of our voters in these seats say there is no chance of them switching from us, and a further 36% say it is unlikely - far higher figures than for the other parties (remarkable, as they have far fewer voters). Conservative voters are also much more likely to turn out. This has been the case for 20 years or more, but these are new times, and one might have expected that as our vote share increases, their likelihood of turning out would fall, but it appears not.
Gordon Brown is a massive negative for Labour. One of the most resonant messages with Tory waverers is that "Gordon Brown is the wrong man to lead the country" - but 44% of the Con/Lab waverers say they might switch back with a different Labour leader. (By the way, I for one don't buy into the theory that we the Conservatives should hope for Brown to stay - I believe that he can and will do so much damage to Britain, especially to our public finances, that it is also in Britain's wider interests AND our party's interests for him to go, but that's for another article).
The biggest threat to our commanding position with waverers in the marginal seats is actually provided by the Liberal Democrats. I have for some time been worried by the LibDems - it has seemed to me that given the current environment, they should be consistently on around 12%, not the 18% in the poll of polls calculated by Electoral Calculus (nor am I saying this because of my friendship with Nick Clegg, dating from our days together in CUCA and the FCS). We may yet need that missing 6% of the electorate. From the poll, among the 14% of those currently intending to vote Conservative, 50% could envisage voting LibDem, but only 36% Labour. Far Right alternatives like UKIP and the BNP barely figure.
Tory-voting waverers also cite party leadership as the most important factor in their decision - implying that David Cameron is a big asset amongst these voters.
There's plenty of other material in the document, so I won't spoil the surprise any further.
Finally, a word of congratulation to one of our PPCs in particular. I know from my own experience how hard it is for a PPC to build up name recognition. The 2005 campaign in Hammersmith & Fulham was the most expensive in the country for both main parties, yet all of the incumbent Labour MP, his last-minute successor as candidate and I all struggled to get significant name recognition. So well done to my fellow Centre Right contributor Robert Halfon for achieving an amazing figure of 32% of electors in Harlow being able to name him as their Conservative PPC. If I were a PPC now, I would contact Robert and see what he is doing!
