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edhodgsoned.bsky.social
Associate Director, Polling and Analysis, at More in Common
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Should you need to have GCSE maths and english to vote in UK elections? A fifth of Britons think so - and younger Britons are most supportive of the idea

One way to measure levels of polarisation between different voter groups is to assess whether people can understand or explain why people might vote for another party: On this measure, Liberal Democrat voters are the least understanding of what might be driving people to Reform

Number of wards won with more than 50% of the vote: 🌹 Labour: 3 (!!) 💚 Greens: 9 🕴️ Independents: 14 🌳 Conservatives: 27 🐦 Liberal Democrats: 55 ↗️ Reform: 66 (!!)

There has been lots of talk about a theoretical Tory-Reform pact at a national level - but look locally and around the country these parties will have to work together if they want to administer their county councils, where a Reform-Tory deal is the only way to get a majority.

Expect we will see more and more charts like this by the end of the day - an absolutely totalising rise of Reform in Staffordshire, which has be solidly Conservative for 16 years

If Runcorn really is within 4 votes it would be the closest result in a by-election in modern history. Only 2 parliamentary by elections since World War 2 have been decided by fewer than 100 votes.

Looking at initial data from Northumberland - it's revealing (and to some extent surprising) that Reform are performing best in the more Labour-y areas, and doing less well in more Conservative areas - could signal more worry for Labour later tonight

Turnout in Northumberland so far looks more or less spot on what it was in 2021

Political nerdery is a finite resource... Interest on wikipedia for UK local elections peaked in 2021 and has been declining ever since

🔥 Putting my geography degree to good use and looking at some historic weather data - Today is Britain's hottest local election on record! Typically, warm weather can increase turnout, but today's unseasonably hot May day could have the opposite effect if it ends up TOO hot...

Some dramatic age profiles for voting intention at these local elections: Steep drop-off in Lab and Green support with age, Conservatives doing particularly well with the 75+ group, Reform winning among middle-aged voters

The big test for Reform at these local elections will be if they can convince their voters to come out to vote - in our polling, Reform voters are the LEAST likely to say they usually vote in locals, but the MOST likely to say they'll definitely vote in these ones

We asked voters in this week's local elections to describe the four largest parties in England in a word - can you guess which is which?

Our polling shows Reform are likely win the mayoralty in Hull and East Yorkshire next week - to find out why people are voting for Reform we’ve been holding focus groups across the mayoralty for the last week. Here’s what I learned from a group of voters in Hull on Thursday 🧵

For St George's day, here's how English voters would vote based on how proud they are to be English: 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Very proud: Reform ahead by 6 pts 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Somewhat proud: Tories ahead by 2 pts 🤷‍♂️ Neither proud nor ashamed: Labour ahead by 7 pts 🚫🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Ashamed: Greens ahead by 3 pts

Public opinion on issues like this is not unmovable - but this certainly goes agains the grain of even Reform voters, who are strongly opposed to allowing imports of chlorinated chicken to secure a trade deal