John Oxley is a consultant, writer, and broadcaster. His SubStack is Joxley Writes.
There are now three weeks until polling day, and with half the campaign gone, the Tories have failed to move the dial. The most hoped-for narrowing of the polls has not materialised; big set pieces, like the TV debates and the manifesto, seem to have had little impact.
If the party is to salvage anything from this election, it is going to need a stellar final few weeks. Most of all, the Party is going to have to be realistic about who it can pull on board in the run to the deadline.
One of the forgotten dynamics of elections is the timing of when people make their minds up. Many pick a position long in advance and harden, but others choose late, going into the campaign periods as “don’t knows”. In 2017, this was part of the Tories’ problem – those who chose late went towards the Labour Party.
Now, it might be an opportunity. When Rishi Sunak called the election, around 15 per cent of voters said they hadn’t made up their minds. Around a fifth of those leant towards the Conservatives.
This is the natural result of where the party now sits, with a bunch of disaffected former supporters. Some of these will be considering other parties, many more just might not bother at all. Winning them back and getting them into the polling station could make a huge difference.
It is also strategically easier. Voters who have already made a conscious decision to switch, whether to the left or the right, are hard to bring back on side. People, as a rule, don’t like changing their position. More than that, they tend to filter new information through the decisions they’ve already made.
Winning back their trust, or their approval, when they have already moved into another new party will be hard.
We have seen this already as the party has tried to squeeze the Reform vote: offering more and more to these voters has failed to bring them on side. People moving towards Reform are, generally, the voters most motivated by immigration. Bigger promises have only drawn attention to the party’s record of rising numbers. The voters who care most have largely switched off.
The same is arguably true of switchers to Labour and the Lid Dems over issues like the NHS and public spending.
Those Don’t Knows, however, are more winnable. The competition here is apathy, rather than another party with which they have lined themselves up. These are, fundamentally, people who have voted Tory and want to find a reason to do so again.
Failing to give them one could be a huge mistake. Indeed, one of the reasons for the scale of Blair’s victory in 1997 was that so many Conservative voters sat on their hands. In 2019, as much as there were big moves from Labour to Conservative, victory again came partly because Labour voters didn’t bother.
There is a sense of this on the doorstep, especially in the seats which will make the difference between defeat and a wipe-out. Spending time with candidates, there’s a sense that people who have already left the party behind are forthright in their decision.
There are more, though, who still see themselves as temporarily unenthused Conservative voters. They might not be happy with the Government, but they could be persuaded to back us one more time.
For individual candidates, this likely means a strong focus on local issues and working hard to get in front of voters. Incumbents need to stress the work they have done and how they have cared for their communities; new candidates need to show they are capable of the same and give those who are wavering a reason to get out and vote.
This also necessitates a tight final campaign push, with effective messaging and a real push through the postal votes and into polling day.
It also requires strategic honesty. There are obvious reasons for the Tories to downplay the current state of the polls. The numbers are not budging and most of the surrounding evidence suggests they are correct. Staying home in a heartland seat is not simply sending a sign to the party, it will mean defeat.
With areas with current majorities of even twenty thousand looking close, this message needs to be honed: that it is not just switching, but staying at home in big numbers, that will cost the Conservatives seats, further empowering Labour and losing good Tory MPs. It is important to reiterate this to the dissatisfied Conservatives who could make all the difference.
At a national level, it means understanding who those yet to make up their minds are, and how to win them over with policy. Polling shows that women voters are far more likely to be “don’t knows” later in the campaign. In 2017 this particularly hurt the party when the social care policy went down badly with them.
Current data suggests a quarter of women are yet to make up their minds, compared with just 13 per cent of men. This is interesting in itself, but also highlights that the late deciders might have different policy and messaging needs than other groups.
At present, the biggest group of undecideds are women between the ages of 25-49. This is a group that historically leans towards the Tories, but is perhaps squeezed the most tightly through the cost of things like childcare and housing.
More focus on things like education, where the party goes to have a reputation to boast about, could be critical to winning them over in the final weeks of the campaign – and could be critical to stopping the worst-case scenarios for the party.
The churn of voters is a complex business, both in how they move and what motivates them. With a few weeks left and polling still heavily against the party, the Conservatives need to focus on things that are achievable and will move the dial.
In many seats, this means the people who are currently more apathetic and ‘anti’. Many switchers are already lost; those wavering can be won back.
In many places, the Party will be sunk by huge drops in the turnouts of those who would normally vote for it. Voter retention is down, on current projections, to around fifty percent.
Some of these have made their mind up and gone elsewhere. Many more are stuck in the middle, unhappy with the Tories but not yet committed to another party. Winning them back might not be enough to win the election, but doing so could be the achievable push which staves off disaster.
With three weeks to go, it’s hard to drag people back if they already intend to vote for other parties. Those who are erring on the side of not bothering could be pulled back more easily – through showcasing dedicated candidates, focused on local issues, and through national pushes on the policies that matter to the uncertain.
So far, the Party has stressed that splintering off to Reform UK only helps Starmer. But the same is true of staying at home, and it’s vital disaffected Tory voters realise that. With postal votes landing soon, a push like this is one of the few options left.
The post John Oxley: Don’t Knows, not Reform switchers, are the Tories’ best hope of avoiding a wipe-out appeared first on Conservative Home.
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Author: John Oxley
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