Guido has seen a copy of the Tories’ local election guidance for this year. Titled: “Winning your local election in a multiparty world: Persuasion, persuasion, persuasion”…
Written in February, the document sets out the Tories philosophy on voter communications in the new political era. It reads:
“The main focus of campaigning is no longer just about identifying strong supporters and getting them to the polls.
It’s about identifying soft voters – and persuading them, persuading them, and persuading them again. The parties that adapt to this new environment will win. The parties that rely on old assumptions will lose.”
CCHQ describes its crucial ‘swing voter audience’ as follows:
“This audience is canvassed at 42% Conservative, with large numbers of Ms and Ts. In other words, this is an audience highly open to persuasion.
They are relatively well-off and highly likely to vote. They are slightly more likely to have voted Remain in the referendum, but they are also likely to have voted Conservative in the past. Many in this group started to leave us in 2015, favouring Green, Liberal Democrats, Labour and Plaid.
They are only likely to vote for us now if we start having persuasive conversations with them about the local Conservative team, about plans for the local economy, and about the good work we’ve done so far. As a group, they require a higher level of engagement and proof that their local Conservative team are delivering locally.”
Ms are LibDem/Tory waverers and Ts are Labour/Tory waverers. Badenoch has a reshuffle coming up as part of which her target voters will be at the top of CCHQ minds…
Co-conspirators should watch for which mid-ranking Tory backbenchers get promotions in the Badenoch reshuffle. Jack Rankin and Katie Lam are two on the right of the party who could be up for promotion – Aphra Brandreth and Harriet Cross less so. There is some talk of the Tories picking up a strategy of the ‘anti-Reform tactical vote’ in order to consolidate mostly in the South…
There is internal debate over whether to continue chasing Reform votes in the main. Are the constituent parties of the right about to pick up their own audiences instead of shredding each others’?
