One by-product of the UKIP surge – smaller parties like National Health Action have been swamped
UKIP’s surge has swamped parties like National Health Action. 14 mths ago Ashcroft polling had them at 18% to this twitter.com/MSmithsonPB/st…
— Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) May 21, 2013
Above is from some polling carried out for Michael Ashcroft in March 2012 on the possible impact that a NHS party could have on the next election.
As can be seen the party chalked up 18% in the poll taking votes from LAB and the LDs and leaving the blues ahead. Those figures were quite remarkable and suggested that there was an appetite for a non-mainstream party to emerge. There was but not NHA.
The party ran a reasonably high-profile campaign in Eastleigh and were the odds-on favourite to come top of the “others”. They got a fair bit of coverage – yet on polling day could only chalk up 0.9% of the vote.
Their challenge is that in fiercely fought elections like Eastleigh NHA gets totally swamped. The non-mainstream alternative is now Ukip.
Mike Smithson
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