Halfway through this campaign, the Tories’ lead is more fragile than it looks | Rob Ford
We are halfway through the election campaign and the Conservatives lead Labour by roughly 10-12 points. The lessons learned from the 2017 fiasco have been applied, and a more disciplined and focused campaign has produced a lead at half-time which is " exactly the same as the lead Theresa May held at the same point last time. Yet half-time in this race feels very different to the 2017 midpoint. What has changed?
Trajectories matter. In 2017, May's was already firmly downward - a lead that peaked at over 20 points soon after the election was called had already been cut in half by this point. A botched manifesto launch, arguments over the "dementia tax" social care proposals and May's poor performances on the campaign trail had combined to produce a sense of crisis. Conservative polling this time has followed a gentle upward trajectory, like a well-executed jumbo jet takeoff. The campaign has featured the usual smattering of gaffes, wobbles and awkward encounters with angry voters, but nothing serious enough to blow things off course (yet).
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