On Predictions for the 2024 General Election

[danieldwilliam]

I think the election result will be at the bad end of predictions for the Conservative Party and towards the good end of predictions for the Labour Party. My view has shifted on this in the last month or so and especially since the English local elections.
My seat prediction for the Tories is closer to 150 seats than 200 seats.
Reasons I think this.
1) The polling has shown a very consistent and high Labour lead for a long time. This is backed up by government approval and personal approval ratings for Rishi Sunak and Sir Keir Starmer.
2) There’s some evidence that tactical anti-Tory voting will be widespread and effective.
3) Reform supports appears to have held up and turned in to votes in an actual election. This was one of the bigger uncertainties for me. I’d expected many Reform supporters to end up voting Conservative but they appear not to have done at the local elections. I think, from that, fewer Reform supporters will vote Tory in the General Election than I was expecting. The Reform vote seems pretty widely and evenly distributed.
4) The large number of Tory MPs standing down. This is both a predictor and a cause of lost seats. As a predictor; Tory MPs are very likely to know what the situation is actually like. If they are leaving before they lose their seat that indicates that they know things are not going well. As a cause; there is an incumbency advantage but that is lost if the sitting MP, especially high profile ones, stand down.
5) The mood of the country (as far as I can tell from the limited view I have of it) seems to be resolutely that it is time for the Tories to be voted out and the harder and more thoroughly they are voted out the better. The people seem consistent about this.
6) The SNP seems to be struggling here in Scotland which means that the Labour Party and the Lib Dems will pick up a number of seats here that they perhaps might not have done with a more popular SNP.
7) The Labour vote seems to be pretty efficiently distributed at the moment. They look set to win many marginal seats with comfortable but not overwhelming majorities and where they are losing votes to the left that seems to be in seats in large urban centres where the Labour Party would otherwise have super-majorities.
So I think the Labour vote will broadly hold up, tactical voting will mean the Lib Dems will pick up more of the Tory-Lib-Dem marginals, Reform will split the Tory vote pretty consistently.
I think the Tories will be lucky to walk away from this election with 150 seats.

Comments

[mountainkiss]

It’s not just him though. He can’t have responsibility for candidate selection and he can’t be responsible for today’s leak.

[andrewducker]

Oh yes, there seems to be multiple sets of incompetence going on.

But "The election specialists are preparing for November" would explain why candidate selection wasn't further along.

What was today's leak? I've seen so much incompetence over the last few days that I may have missed that one! (Or not registered it specifically as a leak)

[danieldwilliam]

I think it's becoming apparant that Sunak hasn't involved enough people and the right people in the planning of this campaign. They appear to be surprised.

I'm not sure why he hasn't involved them. I think either, he knew his prefered timing and it was July but he wanted to keep a secret from them for some reason or Sunak was bounced in to the timing by some other factor.

[andrewducker]

I still can't see what they are gaining by going now. Things aren't getting noticeably worse for the Conservatives, and they seem likely to lose very badly no matter what they do, so why not hold on to power for another 5-6 months?

Sunak was *just* able to say "Look, inflation has gotten less awful!" - and if that is going to filter through to people feeling better (which seems unlikely, but possible) then it's going to take months to do so.

So either something has happened in the background, or he's really massively incompetent in a way that makes no sense to us because it really does make no sense.

[danieldwilliam]

I agree with that. 3 months of lower inflation and a Bank of England rates cut might just save 50 Tory MP's (including the next best leader of the Conservative Party.

[mountainkiss]

Leak wasn’t quite the right term sorry, though it was leaked. The CCHQ email.

[andrewducker]

Oh yes. I'm not sure there's a better word for "accidentally sending something externally that you didn't mean to, and makes you look awful", but you're right right that it isn't quite the right term.

But I totally agree that it makes them look awful.

[danieldwilliam]

Information Mishandling Event.