A new poll by YouGov shows Labour neck-and-neck with Liam Fox in North Somerset. With tactical voting, Labour can win.

The YouGov poll

A YouGov poll commissioned by a group of Conservative Party donors and published in The Telegraph surveyed 14,000 people and used the MRP method to predict constituency-level results. This method – multilevel regression and post-stratification – successfully forecast the 2017 and 2019 UK elections.

Countrywide, it predicts a 1997-style wipeout for the Conservative Party, with Labour winning a landslide 120-seat majority. The Conservatives would lose all but 169 of their current seats.

In North Somerset, the poll shows Labour is neck-and-neck with the Conservatives. If an election was held tomorrow, Conservative Liam Fox would be predicted to hold onto his seat by just a few votes, with 33% of the vote. Labour would be just 1% behind on 32%. The Liberal Democrats and Greens would be predicted to come a distant third and fourth place with 16% and 9% respectively. The Reform Party would receive 8% of the vote.

It’s a two horse race in North Somerset. It is important, therefore, that if Lib Dem and Green voters want to see the end of Liam Fox and a new MP for North Somerset, they must lend their vote to the Labour Party candidate. The poll shows that, with Labour and the Conservatives so close, any vote for the Lib Dems or Greens in North Somerset risks allowing Liam Fox to slip through.

Past general elections

The polling data is backed up by the results of the last three general elections.

In 2015, 2017 and 2019 Labour came second to the Conservatives in North Somerset. The Lib Dems and Greens were distant third and fourth respectively.

Labour needs tactical votes from Lib Dems and Greens in order to beat Liam Fox. In 2019, Labour was 17,539 votes away from the Tories. If Lib Dem and Green voters had voted tactically for Labour, North Somerset would have been within just 3,547 votes of kicking out Liam Fox.

Recent by-elections

Recent by-elections prove that Labour is now capable of overturning huge Tory majorities in seats like North Somerset:

• Mid-Bedfordshire (Oct 2023): Labour overturned a 25,000 Tory majority. Mid-Bedforshire has very similar demographics to North Somerset
• Tamworth (Oct 2023): Labour overturned a 20,000 Tory majority
• Selby and Ainsty (July 2023): Labour overturned another 20,000 Tory majority.

These results make it clear that Labour can win in seats like North Somerset with the support of tactical Lib Dem and Green voters.