How Conservatives Plan to Minimize Election Losses

Conservative MPs and candidates are working to minimize the party's electoral losses by running a hyper-local campaign that focuses on specific issues and downplays Rishi Sunak's leadership.

Several deputies candidates for re-election have declared this I They are more optimistic in their own region than national polls suggest, but none put the conservative leader at the center of their campaign.

Although very few conservatives say their party has a chance of winning the July 4 election, most believe the overall outcome will be closer than the wipeout scenario that many polls seem to predict.

One veteran MP said: “I just keep doing what I do, people know what I stand for and what I do.

Either this is going to be a huge landslide and we're all screwed, or I'm going to hang on because of what I did here. I think people want a change, but they don't know what they want to change to.

A minister added: “There are a lot of undecided people who don't like Starmer or the Labor Party and are perplexed by the current election. My biggest concern is the low participation.

Former Labor voters who supported Brexit and Boris Johnson in 2019 do not want to return to the Labor fold, the minister said, continuing: Will they vote for the Reformists? Maybe.

Some campaigners are openly telling voters that Labor will form the next government and should therefore send a Conservative MP to Westminster to form a strong opposition.

One Tory campaigner said: I found it very effective to tell hesitant Tory voters that they are going to get a Labor government, so do they want a Labor MP who just does what they are told and goes along with it? government, or do they want a Conservative MP who defends his region. When I say that, nine out of ten recommit to voting Conservative.

One MP said the gates were more positive than the polls, predicting the Tories would win around 100 seats, but added: Losing more than 150 seats is still really crap.

Johnny Mercer, Minister of Veterans Affairs, said Radio Times The fact that Mr Sunak's decision to leave D-Day commemorations early to return to the campaign trail sometimes comes up in conversations with voters.

He added: It's really difficult. When you've been in power for fourteen years and things aren't going your way and the tide is heavily against you, it's really tough on the gates.

It's very hard on the doors and the polls are very much against us. When we come home and see the media, our morale plummets.

Moreover, some Conservatives gave up following the start of the election campaign and the Prime Minister's bruising appearance during the leaders' debate on Sky News.

This gave rise to claims that the Conservative leader and his entourage had abandoned the idea of ​​winning the election and had instead geared their campaign towards limiting the size of the Labor majority.

The faltering campaign coincides with Nigel Farages Reform UK leading the Conservatives in a YouGov poll and the Tories' complete failure to reduce Labour's lead by 20 points.

A new BMG survey for I also found that 46 percent of Conservative voters want some form of cooperation between the two parties.

This led to a significant increase in campaign messaging from CCHQ urging voters not to give Labor and Sir Keir Starmer a historic majority.

A CCHQ insider said I that while there was no explicit instruction to change the campaign strategy, there is evidence that this is a new message.

2024 election

Rishi Sunak, Sir Keir Starmer and other party leaders are on the campaign trail, and IThe Election Live Blog is the go-to place for everything general election related.

On Monday, the Liberal Democrats launched their manifesto, followed on Tuesday by the launch of the Conservative manifesto, which included a further cut to national insurance. On Wednesday, the Green Party launched its program which it hopes will secure important seats.

Labor's manifesto launch on Thursday was interrupted by a protester calling for more youth policies, but Starmer was undeterred as he announced changes to the voting age and confirmed his party's position. party on tax and spending cuts.

I urged parties to commit to his Save Britains Rivers manifesto to improve our waterways. The Liberal Democrats were the first to support the campaign, followed by the Green Party.