Tag Archives: sophomore surge

Ashcroft’s poll of Lib Dem battleground seats: incumbency is alive and well but 2015 will be a survival election for the party

By Stephen Tall | Mon 29th September 2014 - 6:15 pm

Tory peer and pollster Lord Ashcroft has published his latest set of constituency findings. He polled some of the key Lib Dem / Tory and Lib Dem / Labour battlegrounds in the summer – he’s now followed that up by looking at a further 22 seats. Of these, 2 are Lib Dem targets, 15 the party is defending against the Tories, and 5 against Labour. You can see the full results here .

Here are the headline findings:

Of the 20 Lib Dem-held seats polled, the Lib Dems would retain just 6.

The Tories would gain 7 and Labour would gain 4. The other 2 would be a tie (though actually a further 5 are statistical ties within the margin of error).

The Lib Dems would win neither of their two targets.

Posted in Polls | Also tagged bermondsey & old southwark liberal democrats, dorothy thornhill, eastbourne, incumbency effect, lord ashcroft, paul burstow, simon hughes, stephen lloyd, sutton and cheam and watford | 37 Comments

Incumbency and the sophomore surge: why these two effects will matter for the Lib Dems in 2015

By Stephen Tall | Mon 4th August 2014 - 9:00 am

With the Lib Dem vote at least halved in the polls since the last general election, there’s been much focus within the party on what’s known as the ‘incumbency effect’ – the personal vote that benefits Lib Dem MPs. This typically boosts Lib Dems by 8%, compared to 1-2% for Tories and 1.5-2.5% for Labour MPs.

It’s this effect which, Lib Dems hope, will enable the party to buck the national trend at the next election. It is, however, limited to those seats where the current MP will …

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged ballots and bullets, general election 2015, incumbency effect and tim smith | 16 Comments