What is the voting 'headroom' in Central Devon?
With the Conservatives having won the four General Elections in Central Devon a key question for tactical voters is 'which other party has the 'vote headroom' to mount a challenge?'
31 May 2024
Tactical voting sites may be misleading, even wrong!
4 Jun 2024
With the General Election in full swing, and a real sense that the majority of the public want a change from the Conservatives, tactical voting is in the news.
With many voters 'wanting a change' they are looking for which party is best placed to beat their Conservative MP, almost irrespective of that party's policies.
Central Devon Liberal Democrats issued a warning to be wary of tactical voting sites.
"Tactical voting sites have an air of certainty that is frankly questionnable," commented Mark Wooding, Liberal Democrat Candidate in Central Devon. "Electoral Calculus do at least concede that they will likely get the prediction wrong on 50 seats and that their predictions take no account of local factors. In a constituency like Central Devon following the tactical voting sites advice may actually end up splitting the vote and letting the Conservative win.
"Central Devon is a case in point. Things have changed very radically since 2019, the date on which many polling sites base their predictions. The Liberal Demcorats have 20 District Councillors to the Conservatives' 15, Labour have none. In the May '23 elections the Liberal Democrats polled 36% of the vote to the Conservative 38% with Labour on 7%. The Liberal Democrats now control two of the 3 District Councils in the constituency and are part of the majority group in the third. In two very recent by-elections the Liberal Democrats won comfortably with Labour a distant 3rd and 4th. Yet these actual results are completely discounted by the polling sites.
"Labour are relying on these predictions in the hope they will win the Central Devon seat, presenting them as akin to fact, whereas there is a high degreee of uncertainty around them. Labour really should be publishing the sort of caveats the polling sites make about their own predictions."
You can view Electoral Calculus' caveats on their predictions here.
Related Articles