Latest polling shows UK Labour likely to win landslide at next week’s election, while Biden gains on Trump across the pond
- Written by: Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne
The United Kingdom general election will be held in a week, on July 4. Polls close at 7am AEST on July 5. The 650 members of the House of Commons are elected by first-past-the-post, in which the candidate with the most votes wins the seat.
In the UK, votes are not counted at individual polling places, but are instead transported to a central place for counting within that seat. This delays the results, so the vast majority of seats will be declared from late morning to mid-afternoon AEST on July 5.
The Guardian’s national poll tracker has Labour leading the Conservatives by just over 20 points. Vote shares are 41.3% Labour, 21.0% Conservatives, 15.5% for the far-right Reform, 11.1% Liberal Democrats and 5.8% Greens. Recent individual polls have Labour leading the Conservatives by 16 to 24 points.
In the last few weeks, there has been a surge for Reform and to a lesser extent the Lib Dems, at the expense of both Labour and the Conservatives. Labour’s lead over the Conservatives has been unchanged.
If these polls are replicated at the election, Labour will win a landslide, owing to the first-past-the-post system. The Guardian’s seat forecast is for Labour to win 424 of the 650 seats, the Conservatives 135, the Lib Dems 47 and the Scottish National Party (SNP) 19.
At the December 2019 election, Boris Johnson led the Conservatives to a thumping victory, as they won 365 of the 650 seats to 202 for Labour, on popular vote shares of 43.6% Conservative to 32.1% Labour. The Conservatives have governed in the UK since winning the 2010 election.
Under Johnson, the Conservatives led in the polls until late 2021, when there were many scandals about Johnson’s parties during COVID.
But it was not until Johnson was ousted as Conservative leader and PM, and replaced first by Liz Truss in September 2022 then Rishi Sunak in October 2022 that the Conservatives fell into a completely uncompetitive position that has them facing a landslide defeat next week. The Conservatives are likely to regret ousting Johnson.
In Scottish polls, Labour is ahead of the Scottish National Party by single-digit margins. In 2019, Labour won just one of 59 Scottish seats and the SNP took 48, after Labour finished third in vote shares behind the Conservatives and SNP. So, Labour will gain many seats from the SNP if these Scottish polls are correct.
In two seat polls of Clacton, Reform leader Nigel Farage has a double-digit lead over the Conservatives, so he should win Clacton.
US: Biden gains on Trump ahead of debate
The United States general election will be held on November 5. There will be a debate hosted by CNN on Thursday US time between Joe Biden and Donald Trump, which will occur at 11am AEST Friday. Trump is now 78 and Biden will be almost 82 by the election.
The FiveThirtyEight aggregate of national polls has Trump barely ahead of Biden by 41.0–40.9%, with 9.3% for independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Trump led by one point two weeks ago.
However, the latest high-profile polls from Siena College for The New York Times and Quinnipiac University have Trump leading by three to four percentage points head-to-head, and more when third-party candidates are included.
Presidents are not elected by the national vote, but by using a state-based system where each state has electoral college votes equal to its federal House seats (population-based) and senators (always two). With two minor exceptions, states award all their electoral votes to the state’s winner. There are 538 total electoral votes, so it takes 270 to win.
FiveThirtyEight suggests Trump has clear leads in three states Biden won in 2020: Georgia, Arizona and Nevada. In three other Biden-won states (Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania), it’s close to tied. If Biden wins these three states, and doesn’t lose any electoral votes other than where Trump has leads now, he wins the election by a 270–268 margin.
In economic data, May was a good month for US workers as real (inflation-adjusted) earnings rose 0.5% in hourly terms and 0.4% in weekly terms, after drops in April. In the 12 months to May, real hourly earnings rose 0.8% and real weekly earnings rose 0.5%.
There was no change to headline inflation in May, and this was the lowest monthly inflation since at least May 2023. Core inflation was up 0.2% in May, its lowest monthly rate since at least November 2023.
The US uses two surveys for its monthly employment situation that sometimes give contradictory numbers. In May, the establishment survey suggested 272,000 jobs had been created, but the household survey suggested 408,000 jobs were lost. Financial markets and economists believe the establishment survey is more accurate.
Far-right likely to win most seats at snap French parliamentary election
After dire results for his Renaissance party at the European parliament election on June 9, French President Emmanuel Macron announced a snap election for the French lower house, two years into a five-year term.
The 577 seats are elected by a single-member system in two rounds, on Sunday and July 7. The top two candidates in a seat, plus any others who receive at least 12.5% of registered voters (a high barrier as it factors in turnout), advance to the July 7 runoffs, where first-past-the-post is used. A candidate can withdraw before the runoffs. The overwhelming majority of runoffs will be two-candidate contests.
Emmanuel Macron’s party is facing electoral defeat.
Yves Herman/Pool/EPA
Polls have the far-right National Rally (RN) in the mid-30s, an alliance of four left-wing parties (NFP) that will run one candidate per seat in the high-20s, Ensemble (a coalition that includes Renaissance and other parties) at about 20% and the conservative Republicans at about 7%.
If the first-round results this Sunday reflect the polls, Ensemble will finish third in the large majority of seats, with the final two RN vs NFP. Poll forecasts of the runoffs suggest RN will win the most seats, but be short of a majority (289 seats are needed for this).
Ensemble had 249 seats going into this election, the NFP 149, RN 89 and Republicans 54. Seat forecasts have Ensemble winning about 100 seats, so this election is likely to be a disaster for Macron.
I covered these elections for The Poll Bludger on June 17 and June 24. My June 17 article also covered the left landslide at June 2 Mexican presidential and legislative elections, and the formation of a South African government after the May 29 election. My June 24 article covered the final European parliament results from the June 6–9 election.
Authors: Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne
