More Tory voters died than switched to Labour at the election 

More Tory voters died than switched to Labour at the election 

New data from a YouGov poll suggests that more people who voted for the Boris Johnson-led Conservative Party in the 2019 general election have died than voted for the Labour Party at the July general election. 

Dylan Difford, a YouGov data journalist, shared the provisional data from the polling company. It shows that 1.4 million people who voted Tory in 2019 have since died – while 1.1 million who voted Tory in 2019 switched to Labour in 2024. 

Flow of the vote, 2019-24, provisional version (will wait for the BES data to be released to make a final version, plus some deeper cuts). pic.twitter.com/gktfPn0mgu

— Dylan Difford (@Dylan_Difford) July 15, 2024

If the provisional figures prove accurate it means Labour lost more voters to the centre and left than they gained from the right – by about 600,000. 

The Lib Dems did better at scooping up Tory votes than Labour as their tactic of targetting wealthy areas paid off. The Lib Dems are now the third largest party in the house, picking up 71 seats – far exceeding the party’s result at the last general election (2019) when it secured 11 seats.

The data also shows more 2019 Tory voters did not cast their ballots than Labour ones – but only by about 300,000. 

Perhaps most surprisingly, Labour only picked up around 200,000 2019 SNP voters.

‘Low turnout as poor continue to be shut out’

The 2024 general election had the lowest turnout since 1928 – just 52% of people who could vote, did. 

Class and ethnicity also played a part. A report from the think tank the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) said: 

The IPPR report also found that seats where a larger share of the population were older people, wealthy homeowners and white had much higher turnout rates than constituencies where a smaller share of people came from those demographics.

It calculated that turnout was 11% higher in constituencies with the highest proportion of over 64-year-olds, compared with the lowest. Turnout was also 13% higher in constituencies with the highest proportion of homeowners.

In terms of ethnicity and religion, turnout was 7% lower in constituencies with the highest proportion of people from minority ethnic backgrounds, compared with the lowest, and 10% lower in constituencies with the highest proportion of Muslim people.

The latest data doesn’t offer us much new information. We already know the older, wealthier people often vote Conservative – or need be Lib Dems. 

We know poorer people are less likely to vote than the wealthy, being ‘time poor’ is a major barrier as well and the introduction of rules such as voter ID only further keeps democracy out of reach of the working class.