Rishi Rebound Revisited

Not much progress six months on

Six months ago, I wrote a post looking at early Tory polling progress (or lack of it) under Rishi Sunak. With the Conservatives gathering for Sunak’s first conference as leader, and much chatter about a polling recovery, this seems an opportune time to revisit the topic. There were some green shoots in the polling I reviewed back in spring - the Conservatives polled better in the early months of Sunak than at the end of Johnson’s Premiership, and well above the disastrous numbers posted during the brief Truss experiment. Sunak looked to be an asset for his party - his personal approval ratings were above Johnson’s final approvals, and well above Liz Truss’s historically awful numbers. Have Spring’s green shoots blossomed over the summer? Let’s find out.

Table 1: Conservative vote shares now vs March 2023 vs final Johnson poll numbers

PeoplePolling have been dropped as they appear to have ceased regular vote intention polling; IPSOS-MORI, who were not included in the post six months ago due to a lack of Truss polling, have been added and all averages updated.

The first table summarises Sunak’s progress in the last six months with eight pollsters producing regular vote intention polls, and compares the current poll position with that recorded at the end of Boris Johnson’s premiership.¹ Conservatives looking for straws of hope to grasp won’t find many here. There is no evidence of any polling progress for the Conservatives over the past six months, if anything the party has gone a little backwards, with the most recent polls giving them an average of 27%, one point lower than the average in March. Five pollsters have the Conservatives lower, two have them higher (both by just one point) and one has them unchanged.

Nor is there much evidence here that the Conservatives have undone the polling damage done at the tail end of the Johnson administration (and worsened by the brief Truss government). The Tories are currently polling an average of four points lower now than they were in the final polls under Johnson, with seven of the eight pollsters having the party substantially lower now than then.

Sunak has not delivered on the early promise of recovery. Conservatives will be disappointed by this, but will hope that voters at least prefer Sunak’s calmer, more efficient approach to leadership to the chaotic, scandal strewn turbulence of his two predecessors. Spring’s polling supported this notion - Sunak’s approvals then were nearly 10 points higher than Johnson’s final approvals, and around 25 points higher than the dismal final approvals posted by Liz Truss. Has Sunak been able to consolidate or extend this personal advantage?

Table 2: Sunak leader approvals now vs March 2023 vs final Johnson approvals

He has not. As table 2 illustrates, Sunak’s personal approvals are down sharply on March, with the share of the public giving a positive view of his leadership falling an average of eight points in the past six months. Sunak can no longer even claim to have improved on Boris Johnsons’ scandal tainted final months - his current approvals are barely any better than Johnson’s final numbers.

The big picture on Tory progress is thus clear: there isn’t any. The governing party’s poll numbers have not budged in six months, and the Prime Minister’s approval has fallen quite sharply. What about the Brexit divide? Back in Spring, the deep and enduring split between Leave and Remain tribes provided one plausible reason why Sunak’s popularity didn’t seem to be lifting his party. Sunak’s advamtage over Johnson then was concentrated among Remainers, who liked Sunak more than Johnson, but were generally dead set against the Conservatives for other reasons. The Brexit divide in Sunak’s approvals looms just as large today, but the pattern has changed.

Table 3: Sunak leader approvals among Leave and Remain supports today vs March and and Johnson final approvals

Table 3 shows the share of Leave and Remain supporters who approve of Sunak with the two pollsters whose published tables enable this breakdown to be calculated. Sunak’s approval is down sharply on both sides of the Brexit divide, but he has fallen even further with Leave voters (down 12 points to 30) than with Remain voters (down 9 points to 20). Sunak today is barely more popular with Remain voters than Johnson was on the eve of his departure. Even more concerning for Conservatives, whose 2019 support skewed heavily Leave, Sunak is now much less popular with Leave voters than Johnson was even at his low ebb. Only 30 per cent of Leave voters approve of Sunak, eleven points less than Johnson’s final 41 per cent approvals. Sunak used to have the wrong people cheering him. Now he has the wrong people booing him.

Table 4: Conservative vote shares among Leave and Remain supporters, latest polls vs spring polls and final Johnson polls

Sunak’s growing unpopularity with Leave voters does not, however, seem to be feeding through into lower vote shares from Brexiteers, as table 4 shows. Conservative support with Leave voters is almost the same now as six months ago (43%, down one point). Nor is there any comfort for Sunak on the Remain side of the Brexit divide, where the Conservatives remain dismally unpopular, with no progress at all in the past six months.

It is not clear why Conservative support has held up among Leave voters despite the sharp decline in Sunak’s approval rating. Sunak and the Conservatives may be helped by Leave voters’ negative views of Keir Starmer, or it may be that the Conservatives’ campaigns on immigration, net zero and motoring restrictions are resonating more with Leave voters, and offsetting the leader’s personal weakness with the Brexit tribe.

On the other hand, Sunak’s growing personal unpopularity with Brexit supporters may become a problem, undermine the persuasiveness and credibility of such campaigns. As Labour learned in 2019, message which poll well in isolation don’t work if delivered by an unpopular and untrusted messenger. And Sunak’s current approval ratings with some pollsters are now almost as bad as Jeremy Corbyn’s were in the run up to the 2019 election. The word cloud graphic generated from “More in Common” polling and shown to the Prime Minister by Laura Kuenssberg in her interview yesterday, brutally underscored the problem. “Rich”, “rich people”, “money” and “wealth” all leap out. It is not hard to see how an image like this might pose problems with voters at a time of rising costs and stretched household budgets.

“What does Rishi Sunak stand for?”

Source: More in Common, video of PM being presented with it here: https://x.com/BBCPolitics/status/1708418979151151508?s=20

Six more months of the Sunak government have passed with little progress for his party. While Sunak has stabilised his party’s poll position, he has not yet been able to change the climate of public opinion. Voters remain largely hostile to his party, and have become more hostile to him. All the polling indicators continue to point to a very large swing against the Tory incumbent, and a likely election defeat. With perhaps a year to go until the election campaign begins, there is still time for the Prime Minister to turn things around. But it is fast running out.

1. I have not repeated the exercise of comparing Sunak to Truss as it is now obvious to everyone except Truss herself that her brief time in Downing Street was uniquely disastrous for the Conservatives.