The constituencies where the LDs will be most vulnerable at GE2015 and those where they are likely to do best
The incumbency experience for the yellows at GE2010
There’s been some discussion over the weekend about the impact of incumbency and how it can help the parties achieve better outcomes in terms of seats won than the uniform swing might suggest.
In a post on Saturday I looked at the GE2010 experience of the Tories and Labour.
Today’s it’s the turn of the Lib Dems and the chart above shows how it performed on average in different types of seats that it was defending.
As can be seen the party did far worse in those seats where the candidate was new saw an average vote loss compared with GE2005 of 4.7%. Incumbents MPs standing again did better seeing on average a slight improvement.
But the biggest change was for those who were defending their seat for the first time seeing an average increase in vote share of 3.1%.
-
So the spread the yellows was getting on for four time as big as for the blues and reds.
As well as the personal element of an incumbent being better known it’s also very likely that organisational strengths are much greater where you have a sitting MP.
Mike Smithson
For the latest polling and political betting news