Who will win the next general election? The odds and polls
Conservatives pin hopes on close result – and even a second election – despite Labour's double-digit lead
Tory strategists are reportedly planning for two general elections in quick succession.
Senior party officials have "a growing belief that the first result could be tighter than national opinion polls suggest", i news has reported.
Polls, bookmakers and most Westminster insiders believe Labour is on course for a seismic election victory when the country finally goes to the polls later this year. But "that is not inevitable" said the BBC. Labour's lead "could narrow between now and polling day" and, in fact, "the historical record indicates this is likely". In previous elections where the main opposition party was ahead in the polls a year out, the governing party has "always managed to close the gap or even reverse it".
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"The trouble for [Rishi] Sunak," said the BBC, "is that no government has been this far behind and gone on to win."
That is why Tory election strategists are "resigned to potentially losing the next election but by a smaller margin than current polls suggest", said i news, but believe Labour would then be forced to call a second election soon after to try to secure a working majority.
The latest polls and odds
A "mega poll" released last month by The Telegraph landed like a bombshell in the corridors of Westminster. The YouGov survey of 14,000 people, described as "the most detailed in five years", forecast that Rishi Sunak’s Tories would retain just 169 seats if an election were held that day, while Labour would sweep to power with 385 – giving Keir Starmer a 120-seat majority. "Every Red Wall seat won from Labour by Boris Johnson in 2019 will be lost, the poll indicates, and the Chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, will be one of 11 Cabinet ministers to lose their seats," said the paper.
"And this was arguably an optimistic take," said The Guardian.
Politico's poll of polls, last updated on 31 January, put Labour on 45% and the Tories on 24%. Worryingly for the government, this vote share has remained fairly consistent since the start of 2023 despite numerous attempts by Sunak to woo back voters.
The New Statesman’s Britain Predicts model forecasts that if these national polls were to play out on election night, Labour would secure 410 seats, with the Tories on just 160. This would mean a majority of 170 for Labour – slightly less than Tony Blair's historic 1997 landslide, in which he won a majority of 179 seats.
Elsewhere, the Liberal Democrats, who are hoping to usurp the SNP and become the third largest party in Westminster once again, find themselves neck-and-neck with Nigel Farage's former party Reform UK, with both polling around 10%, followed by the Greens on 7%.
The Telegraph said its mega-poll "exposes the huge influence that Reform UK is set to have on the election result". The right-wing party "would not win any seats", said the paper, "but support for it would be the decisive factor in 96 Tory losses – the difference between a Labour majority and a hung Parliament".
The bookmakers favour Labour too. William Hill is offering 1/6 on Starmer being the next prime minister, while a Sunak victory is priced at 5/1.
Election issues
Sunak has deployed several strategy shifts since becoming Tory leader – presenting himself as the change candidate at the party conference last autumn before abruptly appointing former PM David Cameron as foreign secretary in an apparent bid to reassure traditional "blue wall" Tories. But he has remained committed to his five key pledges: to halve inflation, grow the economy, see debt fall as a percentage of GDP, cut NHS waiting lists and stop small boats crossing the Channel.
His problem is that he is on track to deliver only one of those – halving inflation.
Having announced £10 billion worth of tax cuts in November's Autumn Statement, Sunak has urged voters to effectively let him "finish the job" – an echo of John Major's ill-fated 1997 election strategy – and plans for further tax reductions before and after the general election.
But while the economy and NHS will always be a top priority for voters, immigration has re-emerged as a defining issue. Recent BMG polling found voters of all parties think that immigration is too high, with 63% saying the current level of net migration is excessive.
Yet the renewed focus on immigration appears to have hit the Tories more than Labour. In a bid to nullify what the i news site called the "growing threat" from Reform UK, the government is pinning its election prospects on getting its controversial Rwanda policy through Parliament and up and running before people head to the polls.
As for Labour, The Observer reported on Sunday that the party is planning "only limited first-term reforms of social care and the House of Lords and a smaller green investment plan" as part of a "stripped-down general election manifesto, as it seeks to make its policies 'bombproof' to Tory attacks".
2024 priorities
Polling expert Professor Sir John Curtice told Sky News in early January that the Tories "are heading for crucifixion".
Predicting an electoral disaster on the scale of 1997 and seeing little benefit to calling an early election, Curtice said: "At the moment there is no good reason for them to do anything other than play it long." Despite the noise from Conservatives about immigration, the economy "is the most important issue for voters", followed by the NHS, Curtice said.
The 2022 Tory leadership campaign showed the difference between "somebody who saps energy from the audience, rather than to the audience", one former cabinet minister told Politico. Campaigning is tiring, and "Rishi gets really grumpy and snappy", they said. "As chancellor you can get away with it. As prime minister, you can't."
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Sorcha Bradley is a writer at The Week and a regular on “The Week Unwrapped” podcast. She worked at The Week magazine for a year and a half before taking up her current role with the digital team, where she mostly covers UK current affairs and politics. Before joining The Week, Sorcha worked at slow-news start-up Tortoise Media. She has also written for Sky News, The Sunday Times, the London Evening Standard and Grazia magazine, among other publications. She has a master’s in newspaper journalism from City, University of London, where she specialised in political journalism.
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