Survation: Farage Will Win Clacton
When Survation conducted a telephone poll of the Clacton constituency in January, they found the incumbent Giles Watling led an unnamed Labour candidate by 8 points, with Reform trailing in third place on 18%. Yet when constituents were presented with Farage as the Reform UK candidate, the party went from merely splitting the Conservative vote to winning the seat. Half of all Conservative voters said they would vote for Farage if he were to stand as would 51% of leave voters. Replacing Anthony Mack with Nigel Farage saw twice the number of Conservatives and Leavers express the intention to vote for Reform UK. That has, as of yesterday, now come to pass.
The Farage effect is according to Survation enormous, compare their predicted victory for Reform with Farage standing...
... to the third place without him:
There are some caveats. This poll was conducted in January, arguably the Conservative polling position has worsened and the Reform polling position has improved. The polling of single constituencies is notoriously difficult, the Conservatives will, as before throw all their resources into defeating their most difficult enemy. Unlike in Thanet however this is not a by-election and their resources and manpower are already stretched nationally. There is also the not insignificant added problem that a lot of Conservative leaning former voters prefer Farage to Sunak. There is the possibility that tactical voting could see left-of-centre voters deciding to support the Conservatives as the more palatable alternative to someone many on the left view demonically. That seems unlikely to be a calculation made by Labour voters in significant numbers.
