Does the Tory victory need to be more emphatic than this?
Are Cameron’s guys trying to manage expectations?
Well there we have it in the panel above – the PB survey of what people expect will happen in the Norwich North by election where voting closes at 10pm.
This is one of those occasions where I think the PB community has got it wrong and I’m expecting a bigger margin than 4,999 votes.
Betfair has a market on whether the Tory share will be in excess of 41% or not. I’ve just bet that it will and my current position is that if I win I make £273 against a loss of £192 if they don’t. That seems great value and if others want to bet against me I’m ready to put more on.
What’s impressed me has been the way that Cameron has so associated himself with the campaign paying at least six visits and spending election day there. On top of that there’s been report after report about the Tory literature operation finishing up at breakfast time with a good morning leaflet personalised to every street in the constituency.
Remember that in Crewe & Nantwich last year the Tories went up from 32.6% to 49.9%. In Norwich they start at a similar general election share of 33.2%.
My Lib Dem campaigner friend on the ground has just called to say that his party are doing much better than the Greens even in wards won by the party last month.
Labour have not, I’m told been that visible although it’s clear that they’ve been pretty efficient with the postal votes. I’m not writing them off yet for second place.
If you have any information then please file it below. We are coming to a time when the party HQs will be able to assess the outcome and word might start to seep out.