The Lib Dems hold #Eastleigh in spite of the massive coverage of Rennardgate
What would the #Eastleigh result have been without #Rennrdgate. What did the media coverage do to voting? twitter.com/MSmithsonPB/st…
— Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) March 1, 2013
How many votes did this all cost?
It’s probably no exaggeration for Ukip to claim that they would have won the by-election if it had been restricted just to votes on the day.
What we do know is that about a third of all votes had been made by post and that of these the LDs were winning about 40%. So the fact that they ended up with 32.06% suggests that Ukip almost certainly did better on the day.
Given that the vast bulk of postal votes had been cast before the Rennard scandal blew up it is reaasonable to assume that the week of awful coverage did take its toll.
Whatever the by-election demonstrates dramatically how a good well run ground game and a finely tuned database is so important.
The yellows won because they were better organised.
Mike Smithson
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