How many of these will be blue when the results come in?
York Outer – 0.44% (Lab 27%)
Romsey & Southampton N: 0.46% (Lab 10.9%)
Cheltenham: 0.66% (Lab 11.8%)
Eastleigh: 1.12% (Lab 21.1%)
Westmorland & Lonsdale: 1.7% (Lab 7.8%)
Hereford & N Herefordshire: 2.4% (Lab 10.2%)
Carshalton & Wallington: 2.93% (Lab 17.3%)
Taunton Deane: 3.3% (Lab 12.1%)
Chippenham: 4.7% (Lab 16.8%)
Leeds NW: 5% (Lab 31.9%)
Torbay: 6% (Lab 14.5%)
Sutton & Cheam: 6.2% (Lab 11.8%)
Camborne & Redruth: 7.1% (Lab 25.6%)
Richmond Park: 7.1% (Lab 9.25%%)
Cheadle: 7.4% (Lab 9.9%)
Portsmouth S: 8.0% (Lab 22.4%)
Southport – 9.2% (Lab 12.8%)
Newton Abbott: 10.5% (Lab 11.4%)
Brecon & Radnorshire: 10.2% (Lab 15%)
Devon North: 10.7% (Lab 8.9%)
St Austell & Newquay: 12.4% (Lab 13.8%)
Mid Dorset & N Poole: 13.1% (Lab 10.1%)
Oxford W & Abingdon: 13.4% (Lab 15.9%)
Are these where Cameron’s majority will be decided?
There’s little doubt that the weekend marginals poll for the News of the World from ICM was great news for the Tories. For it backed up an earlier marginals poll late last year from YouGov that suggested that the blues were doing quite a bit better in LAB>CON marginals than the national voting intention polls.
But what about the LD>CON marginals listed above – all of which the seat calculators suggest that the Tories need to take to get an overall majority? But how many will actually go?
For ICM suggests that the Tories need to take a fair whack of them if Dave is to get his working majority – and, of course, different considerations other than the LAB-CON national swing might apply
Although we’ve had polls of LAB>CON marginals the only data we have on the LD>CON situation dates back to last September’s PolticisHome poll of 238 marginals with a sample of more than 33,000 people.
That suggested that Clegg’s party stood to lose only nine of the 63 seats it “notionally” got at the 2005 election. There was some argument at the time over the form of questioning that was deployed but the overall picture did not look as positive for the blue team as they might have hoped.
My understanding is that CCHQ is expecting about ten gains from the Lib Dems – so many of the seats above might not go blue. That means, of course, that they have to to better elsewhere to reach the initial target of 117 gains.
I am pleased to say that a PB/Angus Reid poll is in preparation to look at this precise issue and we hope to be reporting in mid-February.
If you are into seat betting the good news is that Ladbrokes now have their markets back up in an easy to check format. They’ve got prices on 368 of the 650 seats – which is impressive.
There’s also seat betting from Bet365, 
as well as Betfair.