Latest Ashcroft constituency polling shows seats on a knife edge – and a strong Labour ground game

There’s an interesting interview with Tory Peer and pollster Lord Ashcroft this morning. Released ahead of his latest constituency polling, Ashcroft argues that “Far from crumbling, Miliband has shown a good deal of resilience in the face of some rather unseemly attacks”. But whilst that’s an increasingly voiced opinion amongst the commentariat, it’s Ashcroft’s polling this morning that shows more clearly what’s happening in the election campaign.

Unfortunately, there are no shocking new revelations. Today’s poll tells us what most have been saying for a while – the election remains too close to call, and in marginal seats the campaigns remain on a knife edge. Six more constituencies have been polled – four Tory held, one Lib Dem held and one UKIP held. On the numbers in today’s poll, UKIP would win Thurrock but lose Rochester and Strood to the Tories, Labour would (comfortably with a 13 point lead) take Bristol West from the Lib Dems and the Tories would hold three of their four seats (click to enlarge):

In terms of Parliamentary arithmetic, all that would really mean is that Labour would gain a seat from the Lib Dems. That’s clearly not good news for Labour, as to be the largest party winning seats like Thurrock High Peak and Colne Valley is essential.

But (with the exception of Bristol North West, where the Tories have a near double digit lead) all of the other Labour target seats appear to be clearly still in play. With two weeks to go then, the margins in these seats are likely to be small (a few hundred votes either way). Whilst the Tories will hope to convince voters to change their minds through an increasingly negative “air war”, Labour will attempt to do the same (and more importantly, turn out Labour voters) with a strong “ground game”. And that’s what makes these knife edge marginals winnable for Labour. Here’s how the different parties compare in terms of voter contact:

In the four Labour/Tory marginals (the top four on this list – Thurrock is a Labour/Tory/UKIP marginal), Labour are clearly out organising the Tories in every seat (and UKIP in Thurrock). What’s more – whilst the Tories are more likely to rely on expensively produced literature, Labour contacts are more likely to be face-to-face contact on the doorstep, which experience suggests is more effective in galvanising people to vote. But more than that, the number of Labour activists in key seats suggests that Labour will be more effective than the Tories at turning out their supporters on election day. With the margins between the two parties so small both nationally and in these key seats that could make all of the difference come May 7th, with many Labour candidates already having hundreds of activists committed to working in their seats on election day.

Labour may be polling behind the Tories in these seats – but they (and many others) are still very much up for grabs in the next 12 days.