Thread by @BestForBritain

Klaxon! Our new MRP data has landed … and there are stories to tell.

First up, the preface: Our study was carried out by @focaldataHQ, using a technique called MRP. Our sample size is a none-too-modest 39,476

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tacticalvote.getvoting.org

Our aim is to understand the voting climate and make voting recommendations where we believe tactical voting could put a pro-Remain candidate in Parliament.

What has changed in the few weeks since our last such study? Gather round…

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Firstly, our study shows the Conservatives could win up to 366 seats in the General Election. But…

…to do that, they’d have to hold or gain a lot of marginal seats. And in those marginal seats, tactical voting could make all the difference.

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Is tactical voting really that significant? In a word, YES.

Our previous MRP showed 131 seats where the margin of victory was less than 5,000 seats.

Our new study shows that the number is now 165 seats.

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We’ve identified 27 hyper-marginal seats, where fewer than 2,000 tactical votes would deny Conservatives a majority.

For example, Keighley is a hyper-hyper marginal, where just 29 tactical votes could keep the seat from going Tory. That’s right, just 29 votes!

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Across the country, we reckon 117,000 tactical votes could block a Tory majority – that’s less than 1% of the number of voters in the 2017 election – an extremely achievable target

Is your constituency one of those affected? Head over to getvoting.org to find out.

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Secondly, what about the other parties?

Without tactical voting, we estimate:

Labour: 199 seats
Lib Dems: 17
SNP: 44
Plaid Cymru: 4
Greens: 1

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But if 4,000 people vote tactically in the most vulnerable seats, we get:

Labour: 244 seats
SNP: 52
Lib Dems: 21
Plaid Cymru: 4
Greens: 1

That leaves the Tories on 309 and denies them a majority.

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We sense-check our findings against other polls – for example, we line up well with other MRP studies and independent seat polls, and we’d expect a little divergence because of differences in methodology, samples etc.

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Any seats that have us scratching our heads? Yes …

Kensington, where ex-Tory Sam Gyimah is running for the Lib Dems in what appears to be a three-way marginal, is a case in point…

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Our previous MRP survey & a recent constituency poll both showed this as being a ding-dong battle between Tories and Lib Dems with Labour a little way back in 3rd.

Our latest figures diverge significantly enough from these previous findings to make us want more information

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For now, we are making no vote recommendation in Kensington – we were encouraging tactical voting for Gyimah but we are data-driven and, if we suspect national polling isn’t capturing a true local picture, we push pause on our recommendation.

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What is clear is that Kensington is likely to be a crazy-close race, where tactical voting will be crucial to stopping a pro-Brexit Tory victory.

And, don’t worry, we will be making a final recommendation here.

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Most Scottish seats are a "Remain-v-Remain" fight and, as such, we are not making a recommendation.

But there are 17 seats here where we are now making a recommendation – 12 of which are SNP, 3 LD, 2 Lab

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Is there any more info to come? You bet…

We’ll be running another big MRP analysis before December 12th to make sure you have the best possible recommendations on how to vote to stop Boris Johnson and his bonkers Brexit mission.

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Remember, we are a cross-party organisation and our surveys are carried out to find out what is happening in the real world, so we can make the best possible recommendations.

Keep fighting the good fight – B4B out, for now.

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tacticalvote.getvoting.org