Why Labour’s large leads could be a chimera
Sky News are reporting on a YouGov poll they have commissioned
Only one in 10 voters who supported the Tories in 2019 have switched to Labour, according to a major new poll for Sky News.
The exclusive YouGov survey of 5,621 voters found 11% of 2019 Tory voters would now vote for Labour, while slightly more – 12% – have switched to Reform UK, a party to the right of the Conservatives.
The fact that Labour is attracting fewer former Tory votes than Reform shows the difficulty Sir Keir Starmer’s party is having in getting Tory switchers.
Less than half – 40% – of 2019 Tory voters say they are sticking with the Conservatives if there was an election tomorrow, while 23% don’t know and 7% would not vote.
Former Tory voters from the 2019 campaign are perhaps the most important battleground for Conservative strategists at the next election, and their messaging and policy is designed to target this group in particular.
Some 44% of voters chose the Conservatives in the 2019 election, but this has now dropped to 24%.
The fact that only a small number have changed their allegiance to Labour gives the Tories a small ray of hope at a time when they are hugely behind in the polls – although even if they perform as well as possible in this group, they would still struggle to win.
The YouGov polling drills down into the views of 2019 Tory voters who now call themselves undecided. Here there are positive signs for the Conservatives.
Rishi Sunak gets a net positive rating, scoring +7 percentage points, which is much more positive than the public at large. However, Keir Starmer gets a very negative rating (-61%), which is much worse than the population as a whole.
Readers of PB know that this is something myself and Mike Smithson have been flagging up for a while. This is might be a shy Tory effect, what really stands out is the leader/approval ratings in this key demographic, with Sunak enjoying a 68% lead.
We all know that leader/approval ratings often give better indicator of how people will vote than voting intention figures. I am not saying that the Tories will win the next election but it is possible that Labour fail to win a majority because of this key demographic and that has betting implications.
TSE