Could Farage win if he stands in Thanet South?

Will he or won’t he stand in Thanet South? Nigel Farage’s name has been circulating in connection with this constituency for months, after the sitting Tory MP Laura Sandys announced she was standing down. But it’s all grown a whole lot more complicated in the past few days because a former Ukip member, Craig Mackinlay, has been selected to stand for the Conservatives. Now, the Ukip leader must decide whether standing against a former comrade will weaken his appeal in the seat.

But how strong is that appeal anyway? The following data allows the households within Thanet South constituency to be segmented into 69 distinct demographic groups, and the chart below shows the demographic profile of Thanet South. The coloured bars represent the proportion of households from each demographic group in Thanet South. The hollow black bars represent the proportion of households from each demographic group in England & Wales.

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Here are the descriptions of these groups, together with the proportion of households in the seat, and their likely voting behaviour and turnout record.