New YouGov polling in 50 key LAB marginals offers a glimmer of hope to the red team
some analysis of the views of voters in 50 seats that Labour held onto two years ago but that the Tories are targeting now.
The bad news for Corbyn’s party is that in the seats the swing to the Conservatives is 1% higher than the national ones being recorded.
But the pollster have found that when a constituency based question was asked that the picture changed. The samples were asked to think specifically about their own constituency and the candidates who are likely to stand and as can be seen from the second chart there was substantial movement.
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Quite how much reliance we can put on the constituency question is open to debate. Lord Ashcroft deployed this approach in his vast programme of seat polls ahead of GE2015. He had the LDs holding onto far more than the eight seats they eventually got.
Clearly when people are thinking about their own seats it takes some of the attention away from the parties big negative – Mr Corbyn.
Another positive from this survey for Labour is that more of those samples in these constituencies say they had heard from the Labour Party than the Conservatives.
The tactical voting figures are particularly interesting. We see quite a movement from people who are not LAB supporters but who have voted for the party in the past in the hope of stopping the Conservatives.