A seat-by-seat analysis by The Daily Telegraph’s Savanta and Electoral Calculus predicts the Conservatives will win just 53 seats in next month’s election, the lowest number ever for the 190-year-old party. YouGov predicts the Conservatives will win 108 seats, also a record high, while Newsagents Podcast’s More in Common poll predicts the ruling party’s tally will fall to 155 seats – 10 fewer than in 1997, the last time the Conservatives lost power to Labour.
Any of these outcomes would be devastating for the Conservative Party, which sees itself as Britain’s natural governing party, and would likely lead to a long period in opposition. To make matters worse for Sunak, the Savanta poll shows him losing his constituency of Richmond and Northallerton, an unprecedented feat for a sitting prime minister, although Conservative Arthur Balfour lost his seat a month after resigning as prime minister in 1906.
“The Conservative Party will suffer its biggest defeat in its history,” YouGov said in a statement. The ruling party will suffer “heavy defeats” in the south west, south east and east of England, it said.
All three polls suggest Labour leader Keir Starmer will have an easy path to Downing Street as prime minister. More in Common says the opposition is aiming for a majority of 162 seats, approaching Labour’s best-ever election result of 179 seats won by Tony Blair in 1997. YouGov predicts Labour will win a majority of 200 seats, while Savanta predicts a 382-seat advantage.
Such figures would have seemed unrealistic just five years ago, when the Labour party suffered its biggest election defeat since 1935 under Starmer’s predecessor, the left-wing Jeremy Corbyn. More in Common predicts Labour will win 406 seats, YouGov predicts 425 seats (a record high) and Savanta predicts it will win 516 seats (almost four in five constituencies).
All three polls predict that the Liberal Democrats will achieve significant seat gains, regaining the position they lost as the UK’s third largest party in 2015 after voters punished them for five years of coalition government with the Conservatives. More in Common predicts the Liberal Democrats will win 49 seats, 38 more than in 2019, while YouGov predicts they will win 67 seats, their highest number ever. Savanta predicts 50 seats, roughly the same as the Conservatives.
YouGov predicts Brexit campaigner Nigel Farage’s Reform UK Party will win five seats, but two other surveys say Mr Farage will not win any seats, despite recently overtaking the Conservatives in at least one national poll. Luke Trill, director of More in Common, said on social media platform X that the longer survey period may not have captured the Reform Party’s recent rise in the polls.
Meanwhile, a Survation constituency poll in Clacton, where Mr Farage is running, showed him winning comfortably with 42% of the vote, compared with Conservative incumbent Giles Watling on 27%. Survation said it conducted the poll of 506 adults in Clacton on behalf of Mr Farage’s long-time ally Arron Banks.
While the More in Common poll predicts a smaller majority for Labour than more recent so-called multiple regression and post-stratification (MRP) models, its majority of 162 seats would still be more than double the number won by former Conservative prime minister Boris Johnson five years ago.
“The fact that this projection, of the Conservatives barely holding on to 150 seats, is one of the most favourable for the Conservatives, shows just how deep a hole the party is in, with just two weeks left before the party can change course,” Trill said in a statement.
A Savanta poll puts Mr Sunak on 29% of the vote in Richmond-Northallerton, compared with 34% for his Labour rival Tom Wilson, but two other polls suggest the Prime Minister will hold onto his seat relatively comfortably.
