Woodchopper wrote: ↑Thu Mar 21, 2024 7:58 am
monkey wrote: ↑Mon Mar 11, 2024 4:46 pm
The last time I looked at a poll, which was a while back. Labour weren't ahead because they are winning over Tories, but because Tories were losing support to don't know and UKIP/Brexit/Reform (mostly don't know). Looking briefly now, it seems that hasn't changed much.
Yes and no. Labour have polling in the mid-40s since the Truss debacle and that would normally be enough to get a majority, albeit not a landslide.
The problem for the Tories is that they’ve been polling in the mid-20s since Truss, and recent polls put them at about 20% (19 in today’s YouGov). As you write, this is due to the non-Labour vote being divided among the Tories, Reform, Greens, nationalists and the Liberals.
Tory support of 20-25% is into wipeout territory which if it were to be reflected in an election would result in the Tories losing hundreds of seats and Labour having a massive majority. If Sunak were to get 20% then he’d be looking at a party with something around 50 MPs.
So IMHO Labour would probably get a majority with what it’s polling. But a landslide would be due to lack of support for the Tories among the rest of the electorate.
I just looked at seven pollsters' most recent polls, from 12th March to the YouGov one published today. They generally show how the 2019 vote breaks down into today's voting figures. I recorded these and took an average.
Less than half of 2019 Conservative voters are today planning to vote for them again at the next election: on average, 47% of them. 13% are lost to Labour, 17% to Reform, 13% to Don't Know and 5% who won't vote.
For Labour, 80% of their 2019 vote plan to vote for them again, but they're capturing that 13% of 2019 Tory voters and 26% of 2019 LD voters. Polling on 2019 non-voters is less available, but what is there suggests that maybe a third of them will vote Labour this time. Labour lose 13% of their 2019 voters to the Cons (2%), Lib Dems (3%), Green (4%) and Reform (4%). Don't know are 6%, Won't vote 2%.
Lib Dem 2019 voters are roughly as unconfident in their party as Tory voters - only 52% of them currently plan to vote the same way again.
It's worth noting that the YouGov polling is very much an outlier in terms of where the 2019 vote goes - they have much higher proportions of the Tory vote going to Don't Know and Reform than the other polling companies. They also show lower retention figures for both Labour and the Lib Dems.
