Most marginal seats heading into an election

[islington]

Apr 12, 2024 9:46:04 GMT bsjmcr said:

Apr 12, 2024 6:44:44 GMT Clark said:

Not really down within the true marginals but the Tories could hold on in places like Nuneaton and Harlow where their vote held up reasonably well in recent local elections compared to elsewhere.

I think any Tory majority of over 10,000 is ‘everything to play for’ and I’m sure there will be some that they do better in and hang on, depends on how entrenched the Tory vote is, even if it was Labour pre-2010, while there will be some ‘historic’ Labour gains where a large swing is likely, in areas they have never won before. It seems plausible that they will gain Macclesfield or Bournemouth (circa 10,000 majorities) but not others they may have held 97-10. 

The ‘red herrings’ will be those that experienced a large swing on the basis of Get Brexit Done - will they swing back just as fast, or has the Tory vote been entrenched just as, say, Cannock Chase is now likely out of reach? E.g. Mansfield, Middlesbrough South, Bassetlaw, etc. 

In ‘97 Labour appeared to ‘underperform’ in some Midlands seats like Aldridge, Bromsgrove, etc, which had majorities around 10,000, where the conservative held on by a few thousand, and yet they ousted Portillo who was sitting on an over 15,500 majority. 

I don't think Brexit was the only factor in these seats, and others like them, because they exhibited a marked trend towards the Tories starting long before Brexit became an issue. 

I'm sure these seats will join the rest of the country in moving toward Labour at the upcoming GE; but my guess is that the swing will be less than the national average because the underlying reasons for their change of political complexion have not gone away and are only incidentally related to Brexit. So while a good few of seats of this character will revert to Labour, I expect the number to be less than the national swing would suggest.

I also agree with current commentary suggesting that the swing to Labour will be relatively small in existing rock-solid seats in the middle of big cities.

But of course, if I'm correct in identifying these areas where the Labour swing will be less than average, then that means logically that there must be other types of seat where the swing to Labour will be greater than average. This is why I feel increasingly confident that, barring some seismic development between now and the GE, Labour will gain not only virtually all the seats normally thought of as traditional (i.e. not 'Red Wall') Labour-Tory marginals but also a goodly number of additional seats that no one (probably not even the local Labour activists and candidates) currently thinks of as plausible targets.

And what of the Lib Dems (I hear you ask)? Well, we have two conflicting bits of data: (i) very strong Lib Dem results in Parliamentary byelections and local elections; and (ii) consistently weak Lib Dem polling numbers, typically around 10-12%. Based on (i), the Lib Dems will make massive gains across the rural south; whereas (ii) suggests that any net gains for the Lib Dems will be modest. For my money I tend to believe (ii) rather than (i). 

So those are my prognostications: when the GE dust has settled you can have the pleasure of telling me how wrong they were.

[Sg1]

Apr 12, 2024 13:17:44 GMT islington said:

Apr 12, 2024 9:46:04 GMT bsjmcr said:

I think any Tory majority of over 10,000 is ‘everything to play for’ and I’m sure there will be some that they do better in and hang on, depends on how entrenched the Tory vote is, even if it was Labour pre-2010, while there will be some ‘historic’ Labour gains where a large swing is likely, in areas they have never won before. It seems plausible that they will gain Macclesfield or Bournemouth (circa 10,000 majorities) but not others they may have held 97-10. 

The ‘red herrings’ will be those that experienced a large swing on the basis of Get Brexit Done - will they swing back just as fast, or has the Tory vote been entrenched just as, say, Cannock Chase is now likely out of reach? E.g. Mansfield, Middlesbrough South, Bassetlaw, etc. 

In ‘97 Labour appeared to ‘underperform’ in some Midlands seats like Aldridge, Bromsgrove, etc, which had majorities around 10,000, where the conservative held on by a few thousand, and yet they ousted Portillo who was sitting on an over 15,500 majority. 

I don't think Brexit was the only factor in these seats, and others like them, because they exhibited a marked trend towards the Tories starting long before Brexit became an issue. 

I'm sure these seats will join the rest of the country in moving toward Labour at the upcoming GE; but my guess is that the swing will be less than the national average because the underlying reasons for their change of political complexion have not gone away and are only incidentally related to Brexit. So while a good few of seats of this character will revert to Labour, I expect the number to be less than the national swing would suggest.

I also agree with current commentary suggesting that the swing to Labour will be relatively small in existing rock-solid seats in the middle of big cities.

But of course, if I'm correct in identifying these areas where the Labour swing will be less than average, then that means logically that there must be other types of seat where the swing to Labour will be greater than average. This is why I feel increasingly confident that, barring some seismic development between now and the GE, Labour will gain not only virtually all the seats normally thought of as traditional (i.e. not 'Red Wall') Labour-Tory marginals but also a goodly number of additional seats that no one (probably not even the local Labour activists and candidates) currently thinks of as plausible targets.

And what of the Lib Dems (I hear you ask)? Well, we have two conflicting bits of data: (i) very strong Lib Dem results in Parliamentary byelections and local elections; and (ii) consistently weak Lib Dem polling numbers, typically around 10-12%. Based on (i), the Lib Dems will make massive gains across the rural south; whereas (ii) suggests that any net gains for the Lib Dems will be modest. For my money I tend to believe (ii) rather than (i). 

So those are my prognostications: when the GE dust has settled you can have the pleasure of telling me how wrong they were.

Yes, many of the seats you've mentioned were trending Conservative anyway, but Brexit probably sped up the process by a decade or so. I think on current polling, very few or any Red Wall seats will be Conservative holds, but would be strong prospects for By Election gains or Conservative gains under a future Labour government.

[Deleted]

But lots of those seats did vote well to the left of the country last time - Labour lost the popular vote by 11.5% - Bolsover was almost exactly in line with this and many red wall-type seats had much smaller Tory majorities

[andrewp]

Looking at where the swing will be largest and smallest, like most ‘landslide’ elections, there must be a good chance that the distribution of swing in 2024 will be very handy for Labour.

Broadly speaking and splitting the seats in order of strength for Labour

Labour currently held seats 1-100 by percentage majority- their safer seats- the swing will be lower than the national average because a) they already have most of the votes anyway and b) the votes that Labour will probably lose to the left are disproportionately in those seats.  Probably The only held seat that Labour could lose, Bristol Central, is in this range and I’d be amazed if they do.

Labour held seats 101-200- Probably will swing close to the national swing, although maybe a bit less as they will get less attention from all parties.

Labour targets 1-100. Probably will swing close to, or a bit above, the national average

Labour targets 101-275- Quite probably where the majority of campaigning will be from both Labour and the Tories. If 1997 is anything to go by, this is where the swing to Labour has potential to be higher than the national average

Then you have the 175 seats which Labour almost certainly won’t win- some of these are the Con/LD contests where the Labour vote will almost certainly rise less than the national average, and some are seats that Labour won’t win but there is actually potential for a bigger than average swing ( back) to Labour purely because of how far they have they have swung to the Conservatives in the last 20 years like Say Newark or Castle Point or Basildon & Billericay or Clacton- and also because IF Reform have an impact anywhere, it will in these sorts of places. 

[batman]

We are still worried about Leicester East too. And Sheffield Hallam isn't straightforward either