Support For Tories Is 'At Its Lowest Ever In British Polling History,' Elections Guru Says
Public support for the Conservatives have fallen to a historic low in polling history, John Curtice said today.
The famous pollster told the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg: “Standing at just 20%, Conservative support is now at its lowest ever in British polling history.
“Mr Sunak, whose own personal ratings have clearly fallen, must be beginning to doubt his decision to call the election early.”
He added that a eight-point lead over Reform last week has fallen to just a four-point.
But Curtice also noticed that Labour are “being challenged by the Greens and the Lib Dems”, and support has fallen by two points – to 41%, on average.
His remarks came after another wave of polls predicted a pretty bleak result for the Conservatives when the public go to the ballot box.
A Savanta survey of 2,045 adults for The Sunday Telegraph found the party were at the lowest point since the final days of Theresa May’s time in office in early 2019, having dropped down four points to just 21%.
The same poll, conducted between 12-14 June and released on Saturday, showed Reform UK had climbed up three points to 13%.
Political research director at Savanta, Chris Hopkins, said it showed “nothing short of electoral extinction for the Conservative Party”.
“The hopes of Conservative candidates are being shot to pieces by poll after poll showing the Conservative Party in increasingly dire straits - and we’re only halfway through the campaign,” he said.
“There’s a real sense that things could still get worse for the Conservatives, and with postal votes about to drop through millions of letterboxes, time is already close to running out for Rishi Sunak.”
It comes after a separate Survation poll for Best for Britain, published in The Sunday Times, suggested the Conservatives would secure only 72 seats in the next parliament.
It predicted Labour would win 456, meaning the party would win a stomping 262 majority, the Liberal Democrats 56 seats, Reform seven and the Greens one.
Survation – which had polled 22,000 adults between 31 May and 13 June – showed the vote share would have halved from 44% in 2 019 to 24%.
Meanwhile, YouGov poll released last Thursday caused a huge stir within Westminster as it put Reform ahead of the Conservatives for the first time.
Nigel Farage’s populist party was on 19% of the vote while the Tories were on 18%, prompting his party to position themselves as the “opposition to Labour”.
Rishi Sunak downplayed this poll on Friday.
Speaking to journalists from the G7 summit in Italy, he said: “We are only halfway through this election, so I’m still fighting very hard for every vote.”
He also pledged to stay in parliament as an MP even if the Conservatives lose the election.
