The good news for TMay’s successor is that her party’s due to exceed expectations next time
The pattern appears to be clear
One of the great things about monitoring election betting is that it gives you a good indication of what expectations were at a particular time and these can be interesting to look back at.
The above is taken from what the spread betting seat levels were immediately before the five general elections since the millennium.
As is shown in the chart the Tories seem to alternate between exceeding expectations or falling short of them.
As we all know Team TMay went into election day in June fully expecting to secure an increased majority. This was in sharp contrast to GE2015 when the expectation was that Cameron would certainly win most seats but would struggle to reach the magical total if 326 seats. He got 332.
Five years earlier at GE2010 the polls were narrowing but it was on the margin as to whether a majority would be achieved. ATories were 19 seats short.
At GE2005 the polls did exceptionally well but Michael Howard’s Tories managed to do better than expectations.
Four years earlier at GE2001 William Hague went into the election having “won” the Euros in 1999. The feeling was that the blues would make some progress from the 1997 hammering by Tony Blair. They closed the vote gap by 3.5% but only increased their seat total by one.
If this alternating pattern continues then at the next election the Tories should do better than expectations.