Had you asked me yesterday, I would probably have agreed that Corbyn's polling numbers had peaked to the downside. Well, it appears I was wrong. The Times/YouGov overnight release the latest in a string of poor performances by Corbyn's Labour, and it's frankly a shocker. The Tories now lead Labour by 24%, attracting almost a voter majority by themselves. 48% of voter intent currently goes Theresa May's direction. But more important is the vote composition of Labour, on the background of 2015 results. More of that in a second.
Were this the eventual result, this would be the largest election victory since 1959, where Harold MacMillan gained 49.4% of the vote on the back of a whopping turnout of 78.7%. I'm not sure we'll see anywhere close to this turnout, in fact, I'd be surprised to not see a large quantity of traditional Labour voters stay at home.
Whether this is the peak is anyone's guess at this point.
Digging into the data further enlightens this nightmare scenario, from the perspective of Labour. While the Tories retain practically their entire 2015 voter base (91%), they also see just below half of the UKIP support revert back (42%), and furthermore attract 20% of the 2015 LibDem vote, and even 13% of the Labour likewise.
From Labour's perspective, they stand to lose just below a third of their 2015 vote (32%), but more importantly, attract virtually no independent nor moderate, They gain only statistically insignificant amounts of voters from other parties - basically confirming the suspicion of many a political commentator.
The question now is whether Corbyn will willingly step down, post election loss.
No comments:
Post a Comment