Are the Conservatives or Labour wining the ground war in marginal seats? Lord Ashcroft has polled eight key constituencies — of which seven are currently held by Conservatives and one by Labour — that he visited six months ago to see who is winning. In these seats, Ashcroft has found there is currently a five per cent swing away from the Conservatives.
According to Ashcroft, Labour is on track to take five of these Tory seats: City of Chester, Croydon Central, Halesowen & Rowley Regis, Nuneaton and Wirral West — the latter being one of the few Tory seats on Merseyside, represented by the employment minister Esther McVey. The interactive chart above shows Ashcroft’s latest snapshots for each of the seats.
Labour is set to hold Southampton Itchen, which Ashcroft said in October was a tie with the Conservatives but now has an eight point Labour lead. South Swindon remains a tie with the Conservatives and Labour. The Tories would hold Worcester, where a two point Labour lead has turned into a six per cent Tory majority. Across these eight marginals, the choice of Ed Miliband or David Cameron as Prime Minister is almost evenly split down Labour and Tory lines.
As the campaign gears up, nearly half of voters in these seats said they’ve heard from Labour, compared to 44 per cent for the Conservatives. In his analysis, Ashcroft notes this is not uniform: the contact rates for the Tories ranged from 30 to 63 per cent while Labour went from 41 to 56 per cent. In these seats, most Lib Dem voters are keen to see a coalition: 40 per cent of Lib Dem voters would prefer to see a coalition with Labour after this election, compared to 38 per cent who’d prefer another Tory-Lib Dem government.
The problem for the Tories appears to be that even voter optimism isn’t turning into votes for their party. Across these eight seats, over 60 per cent said they thought the economy would fare well over the next year, both for themselves and their families. Even in Labour-held Southampton Itchen, 63 per cent were optimistic about their economic prospects. The Tories’ campaign has been based on the premise that only David Cameron can be trusted to ensure Britain’s economic recovery continues. But if voters think the recovery is now secure and the Tories aren’t vital to future progress, the Conservatives’ job becomes even harder.
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