wjfox
October 4th, 2009, 01:32 PM
http://www.greenparty.org.uk/news/2009-10-03-marginals-poll-politicshome.html
New poll predicts first Green win in general election
03 October 2009
An in-depth poll of Britain's marginal constituencies (1) today predicts that Green Party leader Caroline Lucas will take the Brighton Pavilion seat in the coming general election.
The poll predicts that the Conservatives will form the next government with a majority of 70 seats. Last year's equivalent poll, however, predicted a Conservative majority of 146 - so today's poll indicates a major drop in support for the Conservatives in marginal seats during the last year.
The Lib Dems could currently expect to win 55 seats, says the poll. This is higher than last year's prediction of 44, but would still represent a major loss compared to the 63 seats the Lib Dems currently hold (2). This suggests the Lib Dems' popularity in marginal seats continues to fluctuate but is still low, and they could currently expect to lose one in eight of their seats in parliament.
"Everything to play for"
Caroline Lucas's campaign director Paul Steedman commented today:
"A lot of people have been predicting a possible Green win in Brighton Pavilion - not least during the Labour conference here last week (3) - but this is the first major poll to unequivocally predict a win for Caroline, so obviously it's very encouraging.
"Of course there's a lot of work to do between now and then to put Caroline's victory beyond doubt, but Caroline is an exceptional candidate and the Greens have outpolled everyone else in Brighton and Hove in every election since 2005, so we're determined to pull out all the stops and clinch it."
Mr Steedman pointed out that in Brighton and Hove:
The Greens outpolled all comers in this year's European elections, across all three parliamentary constituencies.
The Greens hold as many city council seats as Labour.
The Greens recently defeated all parties in a council by-election in Hove, taking the Goldsmid seat from the Conservatives.
In the Brighton Pavilion constituency, in 2005 the Greens came a very close third with 22% of the vote (behind the Tories on 24%), but since then have become the strongest party in terms of both council seats and vote share.
The poll was carried out by YouGov for Politics Home. See http://page.politicshome.com/documents/2009ElectoralIndex.pdf
New poll predicts first Green win in general election
03 October 2009
An in-depth poll of Britain's marginal constituencies (1) today predicts that Green Party leader Caroline Lucas will take the Brighton Pavilion seat in the coming general election.
The poll predicts that the Conservatives will form the next government with a majority of 70 seats. Last year's equivalent poll, however, predicted a Conservative majority of 146 - so today's poll indicates a major drop in support for the Conservatives in marginal seats during the last year.
The Lib Dems could currently expect to win 55 seats, says the poll. This is higher than last year's prediction of 44, but would still represent a major loss compared to the 63 seats the Lib Dems currently hold (2). This suggests the Lib Dems' popularity in marginal seats continues to fluctuate but is still low, and they could currently expect to lose one in eight of their seats in parliament.
"Everything to play for"
Caroline Lucas's campaign director Paul Steedman commented today:
"A lot of people have been predicting a possible Green win in Brighton Pavilion - not least during the Labour conference here last week (3) - but this is the first major poll to unequivocally predict a win for Caroline, so obviously it's very encouraging.
"Of course there's a lot of work to do between now and then to put Caroline's victory beyond doubt, but Caroline is an exceptional candidate and the Greens have outpolled everyone else in Brighton and Hove in every election since 2005, so we're determined to pull out all the stops and clinch it."
Mr Steedman pointed out that in Brighton and Hove:
The Greens outpolled all comers in this year's European elections, across all three parliamentary constituencies.
The Greens hold as many city council seats as Labour.
The Greens recently defeated all parties in a council by-election in Hove, taking the Goldsmid seat from the Conservatives.
In the Brighton Pavilion constituency, in 2005 the Greens came a very close third with 22% of the vote (behind the Tories on 24%), but since then have become the strongest party in terms of both council seats and vote share.
The poll was carried out by YouGov for Politics Home. See http://page.politicshome.com/documents/2009ElectoralIndex.pdf