Eastleigh

[ewx]

Party	2010	2013
LD	24966	13342
UKIP	1933	11571
Con	21102	10559
Lab	5153	4088
Turnout	53650	41616

Turnout fell by 22%. Labour’s vote fell by 20%, i.e. held up compared to turnout but didn't actually go anywhere. Failing to pick up anti-incumbent protest votes is a bit of a problem for the opposition party.

The CON+UKIP vote fell by only 3%, but went from a 92-8 split to a 48-52 split. (It’s only a guess that it's the same people both times round but I think it’s a fairly plausible one.)

Nigel Farage is plainly onto something with “If the Conservatives hadn't split our vote we would have won” although I cannot help but be reminded of the (probably apocryphal) Enver Hoxha quote: “Never forget that, with China, Albania has a quarter of the world’s population.”

The LD vote fell by nearly 50%. Given the fall in turnout, “half of previous LD voters stayed home” isn’t an implausible interpretation.

• Eastleigh (UK Parliament constituency)
• Eastleigh by-election: Lib Dems hold on despite UKIP surge
• Enver Hoxha

Comments

[venta.livejournal.com]

I think it's quite impressive how invisible Labour seem to be managing to be at the moment. I feel like they should be all over the news, jumping up and down about government changes, and attracting disenchanted LibDems left and right, but they're not. (The stories are there if you look for them, of course, but they seem to be amazingly low profile).

[pjc50.livejournal.com]

Quite a lot of the disenchanted Lib Dems are people who already left Labour after the downsides of Blairism became apparent. They can't go back yet. I think mostly they've gone into the turnout drop.

There is a lot of noise on the internet from people who regard Labour as part of an incumbent political class, and are voting UKIP as the opposition to this incumbent class. This is similar to the Beppe Grillo vote.

I think the "Labour ruined the economy" line has a lot of traction still, despite not being at all true.

[bellinghman.livejournal.com]

The number of voters who voted either Tory or UKIP is near constant - but much more voting UKIP this time.

I'd go for "Half of the previous LDs abstained, half of the previous Tories went UKIP" as the simplest likely explanation.

I've seen reports of poll results stating that only a minority (43%) of those that did vote UKIP would vote that way again at a General Election. That would tally with Tory voters voting UKIP as a protest.

[beingjdc.livejournal.com]

Labour were exceptionally good at jumping up and down about government changes, and attracting the disenchanted, between about, ooh, 1979 and 1993. Turns out it gets you some stunning byelection results, and then nothing, people see you as a good protest vote but not a plausible alternative Government - particularly if you can't explain exactly what you would do differently or (as 1992) if what you can do differently costs an amount of money that can be added up and mocked up as a tax demand.

Polling suggests Labour already has about 50% of 2010 Lib Dem voters, so that's essentially all the ones who would have second preferenced Labour in 2010. In that sense Eastleigh is great news for Labour, albeit bad press for one news cycle - it suggests those voters are being acquired where they are needed, rather than in seats where Labour is a hopeless third (or, now, fourth).

As to the substantive, Ashcroft's polling suggests UKIP attracted a lot of 2010 Lib Dem voters - indeed more by number than it did 2010 Tory voters (though a smaller proportion).

[ewx.livejournal.com]

Interesting. LD→UKIP seems like a big jump but I suppose there’ve been bigger.

[beingjdc.livejournal.com]

Ragevote against the establishment and in favour of people who will never get a chance to break their promises. Potato potahto. People have been voting Lib Dem at Council and UKIP at Euro for over a decade, at least in the South-West.