Tonight’s a nervous night if you’re an candidate for re-election in a marginal seat (or in Scotland). You might have an impressive get-out-the-vote operation, or you might have spent the past five years wheeling and dealing in Westminster on behalf of your constituents so that you have a strong personal brand, but it might be that voters just aren’t that into your party. Or, in spite of your best efforts, you.
A good number of the Tory candidates in marginals who I spoke to today feel as though the race is too tight for them to have any idea whether they will be back in Westminster next week. The same goes for Labour and Lib Dems in Scotland, but for slightly different reasons.
One Tory described it as ‘fascinating but still too close to call’, with some nerves about the party’s failure to take any sort of lead in the polls. Another, whose fight is also very close, said things had started to move their way locally, and another seemed happier about the response on the doorstep than at the start of the campaign. One fighting off a strong Labour challenge said he thought he was safe, while another trying to gain a seat said it looked as though their constituency would be blue by Friday.
Others seemed slightly alarmed that their seats were under a greater threat than they thought. And the gossip from the ground is that Helen Grant is toast in Maidstone and The Weald.
Candidates from both Lib Dems and Labour in Scotland all offered variations on the theme of ‘it’s bloody close and so hard to tell’. The most upbeat I’ve had today was that messages about tactical voting to stop the SNP did seem to be working, with one candidate feeling sufficiently hopeful to say ‘don’t be surprised if you see me in London at the weekend’.
You’ll note that no-one wanted to be identified: the silliest thing to do in a tight race is to say you’re confident of anything.
But because there is no sense of movement in the polls, many candidates look as though they are going to be as surprised as everyone else is when their result is declared. Tomorrow night is going to be worth staying up for.
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