YouGov poll: Reform and Tories both outpolling Labour among working-class voters

Reform and the Tories are both polling better among working-class voters than Labour is, a survey by YouGov has found.

The latest poll found that Reform has 30% of the vote share among C2DE voters,  a widely used category based on occupations and often seen as a shorthand for working-class voters.

Labour only has the support of 20% of C2DE voters, with the Tories actually coming in second place at 22%.

The group includes  skilled, semi-skilled, and unskilled manual labourers, as well as the unemployed – groups seen historically as more sympathetic to the labour movement than the right.

Labour is more popular with the professional classes and administrative workers

Conversely Labour lead with voters in the ABC1 bracket, on 27%.

These are the professional classes – like doctors, bankers, and managers – as well as administrative and clerical workers.

Reform has the second highest vote share of these voters, at 22%, and the Conservatives are third at 21%.

The worrying trend for Labour isn’t anything new, but is likely to give senior party strategists food for thought.

READ MORE: Labour’s most marginal seats against Reform UK

It comes as The New Statesman’s Ben Walker found that Labour’s vote share was also low among voters living in council housing at the 2024 general election.

Just 43% of them voted Labour – compared to 64% in 1997. Reform were in second place at 20%, and the Tories got another 12%, giving the two right wing parties 32% of the vote.

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