Tactical Voting

The three by elections on July 20th 2023 were notable for the decline in support for third parties. The graph below helps shows that in Somerton and Frome, there was a near identical reversal in vote share between the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats from 2019 to the by election in 2023. What is more interesting however is that the Labour Party saw their support drop over 10%, despite them being much further ahead in the national polls then they were in 2019. What might explain this drop in the vote share? The most obvious answer is that an Anti Conservative coalition has begun to emerge whereby non Conservative voters have decided to vote for which ever party they believe is most likely to dislodge the Conservatives.

The same was true in the the other two by elections also.

Again, you’ll notice that the Liberal Democrat vote declined whilst the Labour vote surged. Both of these elections are a clear demonstration of the importance of tactical voting in a first past the post system. Voters are more likely to back the party that they believe has a chance of winning the seat rather then backing the party that they might otherwise naturally support.