Tory MPs used to think they could rely on telltale signs while out on the campaign trail — a detached house or a neatly kept lawn — to help them find their target voters. These days, things are more complicated. The Tories’ electoral strategy now rests on persuading voters who have never voted Conservative in their lives to go blue. To help candidates and activists in their efforts, the party has sent them a handbook setting out who they need to win over. It identifies the following groups as being pivotal to Tory success:
Labour Leave voters
Top of the list are the Labour Leave voters who backed Brexit but probably voted Labour in both 2017 and 2015. These are the same voters whom Theresa May targeted in the last election but, as the book explains, ‘many of these people may have been considering a vote for the Conservatives but by polling day they returned home to Labour’.
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