More marginals polling shows Labour on course to make gains from Tories

A new Lord Ashcroft poll of 11 Conservative marginals, published yesterday, shows Labour are on course to make further gains in Tory territories. The new polling took place in seats with bigger Tory majorities than previously polled, but still sees Labour winning nearly all of them. Only one constituency polled shows the Tories ahead, while another shows a dead heat.

The nine seats where Labour hold a lead are:

Brentford and Isleworth

Brighton Kemptown

Corby

Enfield North

Halesowen & Rowley Regis

Hastings & Rye

Hove

Ipswich

Nuneaton

Of these, Corby is obviously already Labour held after the by-election in 2012, but is included here based on the Tory majority in 2010. While the polling there shows a smaller victory for Labour than the by-election is on the cards, it is still a huge change from the last general election and points to Andy Sawford holding onto the seat comfortably.

Overall, there is an average swing of around 5% – far above what is needed to take them. Our best result from the group looks to be Brentford & Isleworth, where there is an 8% swing from Conservative to Labour. Perhaps tellingly, this is also UKIP’s worst performance from the group.

However, the Tories look set to keep Gloucester, with a small 2% swing to Labour leaving the us trailing by two-point lead. In Pudsey, meanwhile, both Labour and the Tories poll 36%, with the Tories receiving a clear local boost (Labour are ahead by five points in national voting intention in the constituency).

While the Pudsey result should serve to remind us that local campaigning is important, and that in many places we will be facing an incumbency factor that is not taken into account in uniform national swing seat calculators, the lack of an incumbency factor in the Tories’ favour is actually quite striking in these results. In most seats here, there is either negligible change or a Labour boost when voters are asked to consider their own constituency.

Why would this be? Well, the only thing that jumps out is the relative unpopularity of Ed Miliband. Only 29% of voters in these marginals would rather he was Prime Minister than David Cameron, including only 65% of Labour voters. This seems to suggest that while people do want to be represented by a Labour MP, there is still a level of dissatisfaction with the Party nationally.

Overall, however, these result are very positive. Ashcroft says that with this polling, they have now identified enough seats that Labour will gain to show that we are on course to become the largest party:

“In other words, Labour would become the largest party if results in the seats I have already polled turned into results on election day – and there could well be more to come: while my polling has moved into seats with bigger Tory majorities I have not yet come to the “bite point” at which the potential losses end and Conservative seats consistently start to stay blue.

Research I currently have in the field is looking at some of these safer seats in search of the point at which the damage stops. If and when we find it, that should define the boundary of the real Conservative-Labour battleground.”

See the full result tables here.