How the voters moved on May 7th

How the voters moved on May 7th

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This is a great bit of analysis of how the voters moved on election day from the previous general election, Martin Baxter explains

The graphic shows the various migrations of one hundred typical voters from 2010 to now. Voters who have switched from one party to another are shown moving along the corresponding arrow. “Lost” supporters are shown in grey, and “gained” supporters carry a white plus sign.

There are four key changes: the collapse of the Liberal Democrats; the rise of UKIP; the SNP surge in Scotland; and the growth of the Greens. On the graphic, we see five outbound arrows from the Lib Dems, and several inbound arrows into the three insurgents.

Compared with the pre-election estimates, there are the following differences:

  • The Conservatives gained one per cent support, rather than losing three per cent, and only have four voters going to UKIP rather than five. They effectively lose none to the Greens.
  • There is a net two per cent swing of voters from Labour to Conservatives.
  • The Lib Dem flow to UKIP is two rather than three
  • The Lib Dem to Conservative flow is three rather than two
  • The Lib Dem flow to Labour is seven rather than six
  • Two voters rather than one move from Labour to SNP
  • UKIP gain three voters from “Other” parties, such as the BNP (not shown)

These are direct transitions from 2010 voting choice to 2015 voting. For example, the two voters moving from Lib Dem to UKIP represent the fact that two per cent of the GB electorate chose to vote Lib Dem in 2010 and then switched their votes to UKIP in 2015. In other words, less than one tenth of 2010 Lib Dem supporters defected to UKIP in 2015 (two out of twenty-four).

The full explanation is available here.

TSE

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