Rishi Sunak’s Conservatives are facing their worst ever result at the general election and could be left with just 130 seats, according to Professor Sir John Curtice.
The country’s top polling guru warned of the bleak situation faced by the Tories as they head into winter with the news dominated by infighting over the prime minister’s Rwanda deportation plan.
The shy Tory phenomenon was always overstated and hasn’t showed up in the polling in decades. A lot of current “Don’t Knows” did vote Tory in 2019 but, if you look at the polling and focus groups of the DKs, they are furious with this government, can’t name anything good they’ve done, and can’t name anything that would win them back. Some of those DKs will split Tory anyway, but some will split to other parties or stay at home.
But we can’t be complacent. The trouble is that none of the other parties is popular or trusted (not even the SNP anymore). It’s just that the Tories are even less trusted. It’s not DKs switching to Tories that should worry us; it’s that people who really want the Tories out don’t vote at all because the alternatives aren’t sufficiently appealling.