The leadership result is going to be closer than you think

At risk of getting egg all over my face, I think the leadership result is going to be very close in the final round. The last YouGov poll was published a whole month ago, conducted before a single vote had been cast. It had Jeremy Corbyn winning on the first round with 53% of the vote and Andy Burnham just ahead of Yvette Cooper in second place.

Since then, a lot has changed.

The size of the electorate has dropped by about 65,000 due to initial double-counting of many trade union voters who were already full party members and had accidentally been included in the register twice, removal of people not on the electoral register, and about 4,000 people refused votes because of evidence they did not support Labour. These weightings weren’t reflected in YouGov’s figures.

The dynamics of the campaign have changed. Until voting started all the mainstream candidates seemed in disarray and whilst they were holding their own at local hustings meetings they were making no cut through in the national media compared to Jeremy Corbyn. It was not clear that supporters of the different mainstream candidates would transfer to each other. The only story was Corbyn mania.

Since then the changes can be summarised as:
– An increasingly strong performance by Yvette Cooper, with sustained momentum starting with her set piece speech in Manchester setting out her differences with Corbyn and building up to and beyond her popular call for the UK to take more Syrian refugees. The pattern of voting has not been as front-loaded as many anticipated, so many votes have been cast since Yvette established herself so strongly.
– A faltering in Andy Burnham’s campaign as his credibility has been damaged by contradictory positions being taken in quick succession regarding his positioning vis a vis Corbyn. His left support has increasingly opted to back the real thing, whilst his more moderate supporters have increasingly defected to Cooper.
– A realisation by Liz Kendall’s supporters that she isn’t going to win and an increasing clarity that Cooper is the moderate candidate other than Kendall prepared to take on Corbyn. This means some of her support has gone straight to Yvette and an overwhelming majority of her 1st preferences (85% according to anecdotal canvassing evidence) are putting Cooper 2nd.
– Whilst Corbyn hasn’t made any mistakes, he had continued to come under intense scrutiny, none of which will have garnered him additional support, and his campaign had lacked major set piece game changing interventions. One big public rally is exciting and newsworthy. Repeated big public rallies just shows you have fans who like going to political meetings (many of whom have not even registered to vote in the contest).

All these factors point towards Yvette being in clear second place in the first round, then establishing a commanding lead over Burnham in the next round once Kendall’s votes have transferred. The key question is whether enough of Burnham’s votes go to Cooper rather than Corbyn to put her ahead on the final round. He says they don’t, in a curious “don’t knock me out because my supporters aren’t as sensible as me” manoeuvre, but Cooper’s campaign says enough do.

In terms of the different sections, what I have heard from canvassers across the campaigns is that:
– Corbyn is way ahead in the £3 Registered Supporters section (113,000 people) – perhaps taking 70% of the vote. The turnout here is high as they are all online voters and all registered specifically to take part in the contest.
– The full members section (293,000 people) is competitive – including the large tranche of members who joined between the General Election and the close of leadership nominations.
– Contrary to expectations generated by Unite and Unison heavily recruiting and nominating Corbyn, the Affiliated Supporters section (148,000 people) is also competitive, with an older generation of trade unionists from a period when some unions were on the right of the party reported to be sticking to that positioning. Corbyn’s team seem particularly disappointed with the Unite voters. The new system is allowing all candidates to reach union members direct rather than them just receiving a line-to-take from their union. The 67% support for Corbyn YouGov found among Affiliated Supporters is widely accepted as being way too high a figure. The turnout here is low as many signed up fairly passively, just saying yes to a phone call from their union to register.

Based on all these straws in the wind my guess is a first round where Corbyn gets 42%, Cooper 30%, Burnham 18% and Kendall 10%; leading eventually to a final round where Corbyn and Cooper are both on 49-51%.

As readers will know I have been supporting Yvette Cooper but this is my dispassionate analysis of the state of play, not just what I hope will happen.