Ed Miliband’s army of Lib Dem switchers
Tonight we’re introducing you to some of the voters who might decide the next election.
Not the Tories who’ve gone to Ukip. You hear a lot about them. But a cohort that’s just as important for 2015 but less well understood: people who voted Lib Dem in 2010 who now say they’ll vote Labour.
Nick Clegg got 24 per cent of the national vote back in 2010.
One third of that now sits in Labour’s vote column (the other third that’s slipped away seems to have fluttered off in different directions or may sit out the next election).
These Lib Dem defectors have added a critical 8 per cent to Ed Miliband’s overall share of the national vote. They’re the reason for his lead over David Cameron (he’s not picking up great numbers of Tory to Labour swingers).
Last night, we asked Comres to conduct two focus groups made up of Lib Dem defectors to Labour.
We wanted to find out how solid they were in backing Labour, what were the push/pull factors for them, does Ed Miliband inspire confidence?
The latest Populus survey suggests this stock of voters is remaining pretty solid for Ed Miliband. They’ve been dubbed his “crutch”.
YouGov have found them to be slightly younger, more left-wing, more likely to work in the public sector than Lib Dem loyalists and a stable source of support for Ed Miliband over the last year.
In a poll last year, Lord Ashcroft found them to be pretty left wing and quite big fans of Ed Miliband, even more than previous Labour voters.
Our focus groups suggested they do still see themselves on the whole as solid for Labour.
But ask some of them how they feel about Ed Miliband and you get some doubts: “best of a bad bunch”, “I’m apprehensive. ”
We showed one group Ed Balls and Ed Miliband together and they seemed uneasy about handing over the economy to them. Ask them who else they might vote for if it wasn’t Labour and the most common answer was “Green.”
They are lost to Nick Clegg, though they wouldn’t rule out coming back to another Lib Dem leader one day.
Some Labour figures have wondered whether many of these new supporters are perpetually dissatisfied and wouldn’t be good for two elections.
Some of them sound like they think Labour would slam the brakes on austerity. They could become as quickly disappointed with Labour as they were with the Lib Dems. But you don’t get the impression they’re immediately off anywhere else.
I should add that Lib Dem strategists say they find the desertion rate from 2010 support is much lower in seats they hold and where the individual MP has strong recognition.
That raises the possibility that the Tories could fail to dent Labour’s numbers and not win some of the Lib/Con seats they need to raise their tally.
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