Why, despite everything, the Lib Dems are still set to win Eastleigh

A new poll from Lord Ashcroft putting the Lib Dems five points ahead in the by-election shows that local issues continue to take precedence over national ones.

By George Eaton

After one of the worst weekends of press coverage for the Lib Dems in recent history, the party will be relieved that it is still on course to win in Eastleigh on Thursday. The final poll of the campaign, conducted by Lord Ashcroft (profiled by Andrew Gimson in this week’s NS), puts the Lib Dems on 33 per cent (+2), five points ahead of the Tories, who are down to six points to 28 per cent, with UKIP in third place on 21 per cent (+8) and Labour a distant fourth on 12 per cent (-7). The fieldwork took place between Friday and Sunday, so after the Rennard story broke, although it is worth noting that the most damaging front pages for the party didn’t appear until Monday following Clegg’s admission that he was aware of “indirect and non-specific concerns” about the Lib Dem peer.

But even with this proviso, it appears unlikely that the scandal will swing the contest in the Tories’ favour. The reason, as I suggested yesterday, is that local issues continue to take precedence over national ones. Ashcroft’s poll shows that the most important factor in determining how people will vote is “getting the best local MP”. Nearly half of all voters (45 per cent) and 65 per cent of Lib Dems cite this as the main influence on their decision. Significantly, then, the Lib Dems enjoy a 19-point lead on “understanding the Eastleigh constituency and representing local people in parliament”, with 40 per cent of all voters and 90 per cent of Lib Dems awarding them this accolade.

Also in the Lib Dems’ favour is that a majority of voters (55 per cent), including 47 per cent of Conservative supporters, say that they expect the party to win, a factor that, as Ashcroft suggests, may heighten the attraction of “a nothing-to-lose vote for UKIP”. But few ever got rich betting on by-elections, and the poll shows that the potential for an upset remains; a total of 27 per cent of voters remain undecided. The Tories, for whom defeat would be written up as a humiliating failure (even if, as the poll suggests, voters are unmoved by the Huhne and Rennard scandals), have every incentive to fight to the death.