A snapshot of tactical voting
A snapshot of tactical voting
We asked voters from the four major parties whether their choice was a vote actively for that party or a vote cast against another party. Interestingly Labour, Lib Dem and UKIP voters seemed to show similar voting patterns, with only two thirds saying their choice was purely a positive vote for that party.
However, Conservative voters were noticeably more likely to say that their choice was a mainly positive one, with just over three quarters (77%) saying their vote was mainly for the party.
Tactical situations
To tease out these differences we presented the voters from each party with a different hypothetical situation in their constituency to see how they would vote in each given situation.
So for example, UKIP voters were asked to imagine they were in a seat where Labour or the Conservatives would almost definitely win. In this situation UKIP voters would have split out in the following way:
This shows that almost 55% of UKIP would still vote that way come what may, just under a fifth (18%) would vote Conservative and 11% would vote Labour, suggesting a small shift towards the Tories from UKIP voters in Tory-Labour battlegrounds.
In a different scenario, we asked Labour voters how they would vote in a constituency that would be won by either the Tories or Lib Dems:
Probably to the relief of the many Lib Dem MPs with Tory challengers, there is still some shift from Labour voters back to the Liberal Democrats in Conservative-Lib Dem battlegrounds.
Opinium Research carried out an online survey of 1,947 GB adults aged 18+ from 3rd to 6th February 2015. Results have been weighted to nationally representative criteria.
